


Quintessential

by Irony_Rocks



Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-15
Updated: 2007-03-15
Packaged: 2019-03-31 21:23:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 29,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13983591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Irony_Rocks/pseuds/Irony_Rocks
Summary: "But I’ve heard that in the end, a man like you - a man much like myself, I think - only desires one thing. A simple life. A life more ordinary." Awildwest_lantisfic.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Just posting this up because I'm deleting my livejournal fics. A [wildwest_lantis](https://wildwest-lantis.livejournal.com/30066.html) fic, after "Deals with Weddings" in chronology.

John lifted his head, blinking as the world shifted into focus. Pain greeted him as consciousness slowly filtered back through the haze. Even before the memories fully returned, he knew instinctively that this time he had managed to tangle himself up in an honest to goodness nightmare.  
  
A figured stepped up, blocking out the sun and drawing John’s attention. He squinted against the light until he made out the undeniable form of Acastus Kolya, a thick black coat shrugged over his shoulders and dark eyes staring down at him.  
  
John jerked upright, only to be rewarded with a fresh wave of nausea as Kolya’s boot jammed down hard against his chest and pinned him in place. “Relax, Sheppard. If you throw up on me I’m liable to take it as a personal affront.” The spurs on his boots shifted their angle, digging into John’s chest roughly. “Where’s your partner?”  
  
John grunted. “About to—”  
  
“I’m going to save you the trouble of hollow threats, Mr. Sheppard,” Koyla cut him off. “My men have already wounded your man, much like I’ve wounded you.” He turned to one of the gunslingers standing guard just inside the double swinging doors of the rundown saloon. “Check for a blood trail. Leave no rock unturned.”  
  
John tried not to groan as he let his head fall back to the ground. The way the room spun circles he wouldn’t have been surprised to find a rather unseemly gash across his forehead.  
  
“What do you want, Kolya?” John asked gruffly. “We never did anything to you.”  
  
“While that may be true,” Kolya admitted, “this isn’t about retribution. This is simply about removing a thorn from our side. If you had just stuck to your pursuit of the Wraith, we wouldn’t have been forced into this little predicament.”  
  
“Speak slower for the bleeding man on the floor,” John groused. “What are you talking about?”  
  
“Things too complex for you to understand.” He cocked his head to the side as he contemplated something, and then motioned for one of his men to hand over his shotgun. John stiffened involuntarily, forced to watch helplessly as the weapon changed hands. “This isn’t how I wanted it to happen, Sheppard, but I have little time to give you the ending befitting a man such as yourself.”  
  
John glared. “Don’t worry. This isn’t how it’s going to end.”  
  
The corners of Kolya’s mouth kicked upward in a wicked imitation of a grin. “Tell me something. I’ve heard a lot about you over the years. You’re a man of honor, I hear.”  
  
“I’m glad to hear people think so highly of me.”  
  
“Don’t be. The people saying it didn’t mean it as a compliment.” Kolya forced out a deep breath, clasping the shotgun loosely at his hip. “But I’ve heard that in the end, a man like you - a man much like myself, I think - only desires one thing. A simple life. A life more ordinary.” He tipped the barrel to John’s head, close enough to ensure the blast would make gruesome work of his corpse. “Tell me, is it true?”  
  
John froze, staring at the muzzle of the shotgun. Despite himself, at Kolya’s words he found his thoughts drifting to Elizabeth, seizing hold of an image of her standing just outside the steps of her shop, her best Sunday dress drifting in the afternoon breeze of Atlantis. If he had ever desired anything in life, it was that.  
  
John licked his lips. “Sorry, all I want right now is my gun and my horse.” He grimaced and added in a wry voice, “Hell, I’ll settle for just the former.”  
  
Koyla barked a laugh. “They did say you were a sarcastic son of a bitch.” He eased his foot off John’s chest. “Now, get up. On your knees with your hands behind your head.”  
  
Before John could respond he caught a flash of dreadlocks in his peripheral vision. He just managed to keep the relief from his face as he watched Ronon silently motion through the open window.  
  
“I don’t think so,” he said smugly. “How 'bout you put your hands behind your head?”  
  
Koyla’s brow knit in confusion. “What?”  
  
John lunged to the side, sweeping his feet under Koyla’s legs. The man fell hard, losing the grip on his weapon as he spilled to the floor, and a moment later gunfire erupted and chaos broke out across the saloon. While Ronon took aim at Kolya’s men, John forced himself to his feet. Kolya rolled onto his back, recovering with a grunt, reaching for his weapon at the same moment as John. Though John struggled fiercely, Kolya was able to wrench the butt of the shotgun from John’s slippery grasp.  
  
But when John lifted his head it wasn’t the threat of Kolya that made him freeze in his tracks. One of Kolya’s men – the quiet one, Ladin – was standing just to the side with a gun leveled at his head.  
  
He heard the cock of the hammer and saw the muzzle flash a moment before nothingness claimed him.  
  


\--x--

  
  
The good news - he lived. The bad news – when he woke up, there was enough pain for him to just about regret the good news. There was a rough soreness in his body that only came about after he’d been either particularly heroic or particularly stupid with his life - frequently both. As he shifted under the weight of his disorientation, familiar voices drifted in to immediately calm him.  
  
“John, lay back down.”  
  
“Elizabeth?” He blinked his eyes open and found himself staring at her concerned face. Carson stood next to her, his white coat billowing around as light trickled in through the pane glass window behind them. John was back in Atlantis - in Elizabeth’s bedroom in fact, occupying the sole bed while the other two gathered around him. “What happened?”  
  
Carson set his black bag on the edge of the bed, rummaging through it as he spoke in a distracted tone. “That’s what we’d like to know. You took a good knock to the head, and even for one as thick-headed as you’ve proven to be, you’re going to feel this one for quite some time.”  
  
“John,” Elizabeth warned when he made a move to rise. “Lie back down.”  
  
Her warm hands pressed gently against the skin of his uninjured shoulder, guiding him back to a prone position. He resettled, feeling the constraints of bandages over his abdomen and left shoulder, and let his eyes flutter shut. The memories came back slowly.  
  
“Ronon?” he ground out. “Where’s Ronon--”  
  
The sharp sound of a wail – a baby crying – interrupted him mid-sentence. He craned his neck to the side and watched, bewildered, as Laura quickly rushed past the doorway, hurrying down the hall to a nearby room. A moment later the crying quickly subsided.  
  
John twisted his attention back to Elizabeth. “How’d I get back here?”  
  
“Jack found you,” Elizabeth answered, wringing a hand towel in a basin of water. As she perched on the bed beside him she draped the cool cloth across his forehead, skirting another mess of bandages wrapped around his temple. John forced himself to meet her concerned green eyes as she leveled him with a half-hearted glare. “What were you thinking, John?”  
  
“I think we’ve clearly established the fact that he wasn’t,” Carson groused. “In all my time, I’ve never had a patient visit me quite so frequently with injuries as you have. Not even Daniel!”  
  
John snorted a short laugh. The schoolteacher’s ability to injure himself, even doing the most mundane things, was a source of great amusement among many of the town folk. He closed his eyes and tried to look as pathetic as he possibly could. “Sorry?”  
  
Elizabeth sighed. “I bet you are.”  
  
He peeked his eyes open. “So, what happened to Kolya?”  
  
Elizabeth visibly tensed beside him. “What?”  
  
“Kolya,” John repeated. “What happened to him?”  
  
Elizabeth opened and closed her mouth, unable to formulate words for a moment. When she finally spoke, her brow was knit together in confusion and concern more than alarm. “John,” she said faintly. “Kolya has been dead for over four years—”  
  
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Sheppard,” Laura burst in, a baby of about half a year old clinging to her. “But this little guy wants his mother and he’s not taking no for an answer.”  
  
John’s head jerked up, staring slightly wide-eyed as Laura proceeded to deposit the baby into Elizabeth’s arms. With the wiggling bundle in her possession, Elizabeth tried to settle him with a soothing hand. She ignored the meaningless string of vowels bubbling out the baby’s mouth and tossed John a concerned look.  
  
“John, what’s wrong? You look pale.”  
  
John barely heard her, too busy gawking at the baby. The infant continued to squirm in Elizabeth’s arms, his little face swiveling as he attempted to take in the whole room. When his gaze finally landed on John, he gurgled up an affectionate laugh.  
  
... And John found himself staring at absurdly familiar hazel eyes.  
  


\--x—

  
  
“He fainted?”  
  
“I did not faint!” John protested vehemently, softening to a dejected tone before continuing, “I simply passed out from fatigue - manly fatigue. Need I remind you I was shot at earlier.”  
  
“Shot?” Ronon repeated incredulously, exchanging worried looks with everyone else in the room. Thankfully Elizabeth and …the baby had left earlier, leaving John in a crowd comprised of the local doctor, midwife, and his usually loyal partner. “What do you mean shot?” He turned to Carson and Janet. “I thought you both said the bump on the head wasn’t that bad?”  
  
“Apparently we misjudged the extent of the trauma,” Carson replied, leveling John with a concerned gaze. “He must have fallen harder than we thought.”  
  
“Fallen?” John echoed faintly.  
  
Janet cocked an eyebrow. “You were working by yourself on the rooftop, John. You slipped and fell off. Luckily Jack managed to stumble across you before too long.” She traded another concerned look with Carson. “But I think we were hasty in saying everything’s all right. You said he thought Kolya was still alive?”  
  
“Aye,” Carson answered. “And he stared at Dillon like the little tyke was a three-eyed monster.” He shook his head, motioning to Janet. “Dear, why don’t you go check on Elizabeth? She seemed upset when she left the room earlier.”  
  
John flinched, forcing down a swell of guilt.  
  
Actually, he’d briefly thought the entire baby thing had been a joke – some sort of twisted ruse concocted for the amusement of the masses in Atlantis. John certainly wouldn’t have put it past some of his friends to come up with this harebrained scheme.  
  
But Elizabeth hadn’t been faking. She may have had an absurdly good poker face (as he unfortunately discovered the hard way when she and the other ladies of the town had swindled their way into the boy’s games). But this? This was different. There was a seriousness in her eyes that he could feel down to his core. The way she’d had gone stark white and rigid when he’d insisted he’d never seen that baby before... that wasn’t acting. Elizabeth wouldn’t have gone that far with a joke.  
  
It took him repeating his insistence three times to convince Elizabeth that he wasn’t joking either. She left the room abruptly with the child after that and John hadn’t heard a peep from either one of them since.  
  
He glanced up at Janet, scratching idly behind his ear. “Uh, yeah, could you check on her please?”  
  
Janet tossed him a stern look that only took a moment to melt into sympathy. “All right, gentlemen, I’ll go see how she’s doing.” She heaved a sigh. “You just rest, you hear?”  
  
John nodded dutifully and watched as Janet left the room. Once in the company of men, John opted for blunt. “All right, somebody tell me what the damn hell is going on here and do it now. Who is that kid? And why are you all looking at me like I’m crazy every time I ask that question?”  
  
Carson and Ronon exchanged glances. “He really is your child,” Carson said at length. “Dillon—”  
  
“Ah!” John cut in, “I would distinctly remember having a child with Elizabeth!”  
  
He’d distinctly remember having the opportunity to _make_ a child with Elizabeth, too. But that was neither here nor there. John quickly reined in his thoughts that leapt to the fact that Laura had called her _Mrs. Sheppard_ \- a title that, when attached to Elizabeth, sounded both ridiculously alarming and absurdly fitting all at the same time.  
  
“You also distinctly remember having just been shot at by a man that’s been dead for over four years,” Carson noted, his voice curious and contemplative. “I think we’re dealing with something more serious than a case of disorientation here.”  
  
Ronon threw him a dubious look. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”  
  
Carson looked vaguely ill merely suggesting the possibility. “Perhaps what we’re dealing with here is…”  
  
“Spit it out, Carson!”  
  
Carson heaved a sigh. “Amnesia.”  
  


—X—

  
  
By nightfall John had firmly decided that he’d gone insane instead.  
  
Or maybe he was suffering from some sort of hallucination. Perhaps he’d been slipped some peyote when he hadn’t been looking? Anything and everything short of the hand of God pulling him from his time and place and inserting him here were possibilities John wasn’t willing to eliminate.  
  
Because the other option – amnesia – meant that something was wrong with _him_. Almost five years had passed, according to Carson and Ronon, since that day outside the saloon when Kolya and his men had surrounded them. Ronon assured John that the encounter had resulted in nothing more than a few bruises and few less Genii in the world. Kolya may have been a bit more vindictive in hunting the duo after that, but he eventually met his end by John’s pistol in a fair duel outside of Atlantis.  
  
That had been over four years ago. A year later, John had apparently given up his gunslinger ways and settled down with Elizabeth permanently in Atlantis – after a wedding that had, according to the lore, been proposed and planned in less than a day. Two years after that Dillon had been born.  
  
Dillon – his son. He had a son.  
  
It all had to be a hallucination.  
  
When Elizabeth had finally reentered her bedroom – their bedroom, John realized, noting the few traces of his things scattered around the room – she’d come alone, the baby left in the care of Laura. John had felt a twinge of guilt that he’d been more relieved than anything at that. The guilt had quickly shifted to awkwardness when Elizabeth had seen right through him.  
  
She’d been unusually quiet and reticent around him after that. Although she perched beside him on the bed, she failed to breach the distance between them. A gesture like that would have been uncommon even in his time, when they were nothing but modestly courting, and the fact that they were now supposedly married and Elizabeth was keeping her distance proved to John just how solemnly she was taking the news. He couldn’t blame her, he supposed. They were married after all, and he didn’t remember a thing.  
  
Married… to Elizabeth. He had a wife.  
  
He pinched himself hard to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. It hurt so he logically fell back upon his original assessment of the situation.  
  
He’d simply gone insane.  
  
“Would you stop that?” Elizabeth chided, her voice laced with irritation. “I can almost hear your thoughts galloping away. This isn’t some sort of conspiracy, you know.”  
  
He shrugged, which proved to be ill-advised as his shoulders were still sore from the fall. “I didn’t say a thing.”  
  
“You were thinking it,” Elizabeth countered, not completely off in her assessment. Her eyes softened and the look in them turned painfully self-conscious and hurt. “Are you sure you don’t remember anything?”  
  
“I remember you,” John insisted, reaching forward to grab her hand. He gave it a squeeze in reassurance. “I’d never forget you. It’s just… the you I remember is still, well, Elizabeth _Weir._ ”  
  
She closed her eyes. “How is that possible?”  
  
“The knock to the noggin from the fall off his roof,” Carson pointedly reminded him, “apparently caused some sort of impairment. His mind seems to have latched onto the last time he’d suffered similar injuries of a concussion. I imagine the time in between then and now is a bit fuzzy?”  
  
“Not fuzzy,” John corrected. “I’m telling you, this morning I was with Ronon twenty miles north of here. Kolya tracked us down and we’d gotten into a bit of a… scuffle.”  
  
Carson snorted. “I remember treating you after that ‘scuffle.’ As I understand it, you nearly had your head blown off.”  
  
Elizabeth stiffened beside him, which only caused John to quickly shrug off the comment. “Whatever. The point is that was this morning. Now I’m here.”  
  
Carson crossed his arms over his chest. “As far as I can tell your injuries are only superficial and I believe that the memory problems are only temporary. I imagine you’ll have everything come back to you shortly. Just give it some time.”  
  
“Are you certain, Carson?” Elizabeth kept her voice carefully neutral. “He’ll remember everything?”  
  
“I can’t promise anything, dear,” Carson replied in a soft voice. “But aye, I’m optimistic this isn’t too severe a case of amnesia.”  
  
John snorted his objection.  
  
Carson’s shoulders sagged. “Just rest up, lad. Surround yourself with familiar things. It’ll come back to you.”  
  
He quickly gathered up his equipment and John realized this meant the relentless examinations had finally ended. He watched silently as Carson put his things away, trying to formulate and verbalize the questions and concerns swirling around his head. It proved to be impossible, though, and he found himself silently sitting like a lump in the bed while Elizabeth quietly bid Carson farewell and walked him down the hallway.  
  
He was left to his own devices for a few minutes, glancing around the room he’d only had occasion to be in a few times before – all of them centering around being wounded or ill, or tending to the wounded or ill. The few knickknacks he’d seen before still held their place above the mantle near the fireplace, but in addition to the yellowed photographs set out in display, John managed to spot a few items of his own.  
  
His pistol – his favorite pistol – hung in a display above the fireplace. Although John knew he’d be scolded for moving from the bed, he threw back the heavy quilt draped over him and made his way across the room. He quickly grabbed a robe from a nearby chair and shrugged it on to cover his bandaged torso. When he reached the mantle, he took in the arrangement of black and white photographs lined on one end. One picture in particular captured his attention.  
  
Grabbing the silver frame with both hands, John stared in silent wonder at the physical evidence of his wedding day. He barely recognized himself in the suit he’d put on for the occasion and the mark of his untamed hair stood out ever the more because of it. John’s eyes barely rested on his own image, though, as he greedily moved to soak up the vision of Elizabeth standing beside him.  
  
She looked… breathtakingly beautiful. There were no other words for it. Dressed in an ivory dress that hung with a wide scoop across her neckline, she looked like an angel. Despite the evidence of an intricate pattern of flowers sewn onto what appeared to be an expensive piece of material, she was simple elegance personified. He found himself smiling softly, staring at the picture in his hands with appreciation. He didn’t even notice when Elizabeth reentered their bedroom.  
  
She cleared her throat and arched an eyebrow impishly. “December fifth,” she supplied, leaning against the doorframe. “You married me on the hilltops just outside Atlantis. The entire town showed up to celebrate.”  
  
All things considered, John thought if he was going insane this wasn’t a bad way to go about it.  
  
Then the baby started crying from nearby and the illogical and overwhelming sense of being trapped in a hallucination took over again. Elizabeth briefly disappeared and when she returned, the little boy had his head cradled against her shoulder, eyes fluttering closed in exhaustion that threatened quickly to turn into slumber.  
  
“I think,” Elizabeth began awkwardly, taking a deep breath, “you should be introduced to this little fellow.” She paused, peering down at the boy in her arms. “Dillon, say hi to daddy.” She glanced up and locked gazes with John. “John, say hi to your son, Dillon Andrew Sheppard.”  
  
Before John could utter a protest, Elizabeth was handing the child over to him. He had little choice but to grab the boy under his armpits, holding him awkwardly at arm’s length like something that might be contagious. Dillon just blinked up groggily at him, rubbing one little fist sleepily across droopy eyes. When John continued to stare wide-eyed at him, Dillon just peered back and tossed him a look that, if John didn’t know better, questioned his sanity.  
  
Elizabeth glared. “He’s not going to bite, you know.”  
  
Throwing him an exasperated look, she moved to help settle Dillon carefully against John’s chest. The weight added a slight pressure against the wounds he’d suffered earlier today, but John barely registered them at all.  
  
“Although, don’t let his innocent act fool you,” she commented softly, smiling down at Dillon. “He may look adorable, but he’s a troublemaker all right. He gets that unique combination from his father.”  
  
John’s head spun with an indefinable emotion and he gently readjusted his hold on the boy. The weight of Dillon felt surprisingly heavy for such a small human being, and as John stared down at the thick mess of brown hair, he fought to keep his voice even.  
  
“Hey, Dillon,” he greeted softly, awed and overwhelmed. “It’s, uh… it’s nice to meet you.”  
  


\--x--

  
  
Dillon fell asleep within minutes, saving John from doing anything more active than holding the boy for a short time. Even so, when he finally handed him back to Elizabeth, John felt immensely relieved that he hadn’t managed to irrevocably traumatize the child somehow. He was good with children, bonded easily with him, but the thought of his own child was something that he wasn’t prepared to deal with. Not yet at least - and certainly not under these circumstances.  
  
All things considered, John thought he deserved a big pat on the back for not going slightly harebrained under the stress of finding himself married with child in the span of a day.  
  
“Hey,” Elizabeth called softly, reemerging from the nursery room. “Are you all right?”  
  
John wasn’t quite sure how to handle that question without giving Elizabeth the wrong impression. “Fine.” He shrugged. “Just a little… you know.”  
  
Her eyes softened and in the dim light of the nearby candles she looked remarkably young and innocent for a person that was several years older than the woman he knew. He noticed then the subtle changes in her, the few pounds she had put onto her usual skin-and-bones frame, how they softened the angles of her features and made her seem even more beautiful than before.  
  
She smiled, eyes sliding to the floor as she shook her head. “I had forgotten that look.”  
  
“What look?”  
  
“That look you just had on your face,” Elizabeth answered, amused. “Like you haven’t seen me in ages and you’re drinking in the sight of me. It used to make me weak in the knees.”  
  
John rocked on his heels, unable to keep the smirk from spreading across his face. “Used to?”  
  
Her eyes sparkled with mischief. “It takes more than that, Mr. Sheppard, to make me weak in the knees now.”  
  
John’s smirk melted away. It was in that moment that John suddenly realized the glaring reality of the situation. He was _married to Elizabeth._ He’d kissed her before and, yes, they’d technically ventured beyond the parameters of what was strictly proper by society’s standards of courting, but they’d never gone nearly far enough as to quench John’s thirst. He’d almost decided on several occasions that waiting to make her an honest woman was nearly too much for him to cope with. But he’d always held back. Elizabeth’s honor was something he’d never trifle with.  
  
Now, though, she was his wife.  
  
He had every right under God and country to treat her like his wife, to kiss her in front of whomever he pleased and… bed her like he’d always fantasized about. She was his now.  
  
...But something still wasn’t right.  
  
“I’m, uh,” he cleared his throat, “tired. I think I’m going to go to sleep.”  
  
He quickly turned away from the puzzled expression that flashed across her features, crawling back into bed and pulling the covers over after him. He abruptly blew out the candle near his bedside, painfully aware that Elizabeth was left standing across the room in confusion.  
  
After a moment she found her voice. “Okay, you’ve had a long day.”  
  
John nodded, even going as far as to fake a yawn.  
  
“I’ll just… go change.”  
  
The worry in her voice was evident but at least she didn’t sound offended or hurt. John wouldn’t have known what to do with that. When she quietly exited and returned moments later in a sleeveless nightgown, John’s pulse kicked up a notch.  
  
She quietly slipped into bed. “John?”  
  
He tried to keep his voice neutral. “Yeah?”  
  
She sighed, rolling over and tugging the covers around her. “Nothing. Just… goodnight.”  
  
He forced his eyes to screw shut in feigned exhaustion. Feeling the mattress shift again under him, he peeked his eyes open to look at her one last time. She was turned away from him, her bare shoulders just visible above the warm quilt. He knew she was wide awake and he was fairly sure that she knew that he was as well, but something prevented him from closing the distance between them like he wanted to.  
  
Maybe it was the fact that he still wasn’t entirely sold on the idea that this entire thing was reality. It was too surreal and, because of that, it still felt like he’d be impugning Elizabeth’s honor if he took advantage of her now. This all seemed like a dream - too good to be true.  
  
And, all things considered, when he finally tasted Elizabeth he’d much prefer to be positive it was the real thing.  
  
He heaved a sigh and resigned himself to a night of fitful sleep. “G’night, Elizabeth.”


	2. Chapter 2

John awoke the next morning to an overwhelming sense of comfort and contentedness. The warmth he felt at finding such a feeling was a rarity in John’s life – certainly not something to which he’d grown accustomed. On most mornings the only thing that greeted him at dawn was the harsh ground at his back and a stiff neck from using his saddle as a pillow. 

Today, though, John felt security and bliss wash over him before he even opened his eyes. He took a slow breath and embraced it, burrowing down deeper into the softness that surrounded him. It took him a full minute to register the unexpected sensation for what it was, but his eyes blinked open when he felt Elizabeth shift in his arms. 

She was spooned tight against him, the wisps of her dark brown curls tucked under his chin, her back flush against his chest. They must have been drawn together at some point during the night, unconsciously breaching the distance that he had tried so valiantly to maintain last night while wide awake. He could feel the curves of her body pressed snugly against him and for a moment he forgot about the impropriety of the situation as he mindlessly inhaled in the scent of her hair.

When he finally remembered again, he still didn’t want to budge an inch.

As she stirred in his arms, though, John realized he didn’t have much of a choice. Before she could blink up at him, he started the rather regrettable task of disentangling himself from her. The cold air crawled over his skin and by the time he was out of bed, Elizabeth was rolling over on the mattress and pulling the quilt around her. 

“Morning,” she greeted, half-lidded eyes blinking groggily back at him.

John swallowed against the sudden dryness in his throat at the sight of her rumpled from sleep, and drew all of his focus to the task of tugging on his boots. “Morning.”

There was a moment of silence that followed and John knew the memories of yesterday were resettling for Elizabeth. The awkward hesitation as she self-consciously drew herself up in bed, the quilt wrapped tightly to her chest, was nearly deafening in its silence and neither of them seemed to be able to meet the others’ gaze.

“I’ll, uh,” Elizabeth began, running a hand through her tangled curls. “I’ll go check on Dillon.”

He didn’t breathe again until she had left the room.

\--x--

 

Cameron laughed, slapping his hand down on the table hard as his face broke into a wide grin. “So there he was, surrounded by these two guys with guns aimed his way, and then we come sneaking up behind the idiots and John spots us and goes, ‘You turn around.’ The idiot just blinks at John for a second,” Cameron adopted a gob-smacked expression, “says, ‘What?’ And my man here goes, ‘Well, if I have to turn around, so should you.’ Long story short—”

“Too late.” John grinned, taking a swig of his drink.

“You owe us one,” Cameron finished, sharing a look with Teal’c. “If it wasn’t for our splendid timing, you would have been toast that day.”

John smothered a laugh. “Right, ‘cause I’m sure I’ve never paid you back for that.”

Teal’c solemnly raised an eyebrow. “I believe if my count holds true, you do indeed owe us several more times than we owe you.”

Ronon grunted as he grabbed a chair from a nearby table and dragged it toward John and the cluster of men lounging in the back room of O’Neill’s place. They’d spent the last hour swapping stories in hopes of jogging his memories, but other than the tales from years ago, they were all unfamiliar to him. Still, John found that he was enjoying himself. So far the door had swung open several times to admit a series of Atlantis’ most prominent bachelors, including Daniel, Teal’c, Cameron, Ronon, and of course the host – who had briefly stepped out to get more drinks and possibly cake, although John wasn’t sure if Jack had been serious about that one or not. 

It seemed strange that of all the men here he was the first to get hitched. He’d always assumed he’d be one of the last. 

“What about the Wraith?” John asked, feigning a casual tone. The men in the room immediately stilled. Sensing the hesitation, John let his gaze slid to Ronon. Of everyone here he trusted his partner the most. Ronon was also the least likely to sugarcoat or bullshit him, especially when it came to the Wraith. “What’s the story with them now?”

The other men exchanged glances and the pregnant silence that suddenly settled in was thick and heavy. 

Ronon met his gaze evenly. “They’re still around. That hasn’t changed.”

A hardness settled into John's eyes, but he tried to feign nonchalance. “What about us? Are we still hunting them?”

Ronon reclined, tossing an arm casually over the back of his chair. “I am. You’ve got a family.”

A thousand thoughts tumbled through John’s head as he stiffened at the news. Though Ronon continued to lounge easily in his seat, the others quickly grew uncomfortable with the tension he was unable to conceal. 

“You did what you had to,” Daniel offered quickly. “No one blames you for settling down. You were never going to defeat the Wraith single-handedly anyway.”

Ronon stayed quiet, eyes meeting John’s with a look that was neither accusatory nor forgiving. It was simply accepting. John hated it immediately.

“Tell me more about the Wraith,” John demanded, voice turning steel. “I want to know everything.”

There was a collective groan in the room but John paid it little attention. He only cared about one thing in that moment. Over the next few hours he listened to the story of how the Wraith had managed to consolidate even more power over the years, driving back the frontiers of safety until most of the nearby regions were completely under their thumb. Atlantis remained one of the few towns to stay staunchly independent, and it had paid for that through bloodshed and more than one brutal siege.

As the tale unfolded, John couldn’t imagine why he’d ever risk giving up his gun to settle down. He loved Elizabeth, but as he continued to listen, it made him all the more convinced that her protection and that of everyone else should have been his first priority - even above his own desires.

He wondered how he could have possibly lost sight of that over the years.

\--x--

 

Deeply engrossed in his thoughts, John found himself taking the long route back to Elizabeth’s in order to allow for more time to think. Unlike yesterday, the full meaning of the situation had begun to sink in. He had no particular objections to being married to Elizabeth - even one day having a child with her sounded wonderful – but those were abstract goals for the future. That was supposed to be the perfect life that lay just over the distant horizon. 

It was also supposed to happen after the Wraith had been dealt with – and those bastards were still currently alive and kicking. The feeling that he had somehow failed spectacularly settled heavily in John, gnawing from the insides and festering, the pain from that knowledge just as real as any physical wound. 

Lost in his own self-recrimination, John wasn’t aware he was being followed until a loud voice broke through his brooding with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

“Penny for your thoughts!” someone bellowed from a distance. John whirled around to find a man rushing to catch up with him and waving his arms wildly. “Hey, Mr. Sheppard!”

John cocked an eyebrow and tried but failed to drudge up any memories of the person who approached him. He was a portly fellow, dressed in outlandish garbs that engulfed him in a swath of vibrant colors. His face was red with exertion by the time he caught up and he gasped in between his words, “Almost missed you there, eh, ol’ buddy!”

John smiled tightly. “Uh, you’ll have to forgive me. I don’t actually—”

“Amnesia!” the man boomed. “Yes, we know! The entire town is in an uproar about it. I myself have of course never suffered from this ailment – as I bathe quite often – but it must be a big annoyance, eh? My name is Lucius. Lucius Lavan, at your service.”

“Nice to meet—”

“Oh, nonsense!” Lucius cut him off, slapping him on the back roughly. “We’re best friends, you and I. We’ll have none of that ‘nice to meet you’ small talk between us. You really don’t remember me?”

John found it difficult to keep the smile on his face, but tried. “Uh, don’t take it personally. I can’t remember the last few years, apparently.”

Lucius idly scratched behind his ear. “Boy, that must be a doozy. I actually moved to Atlantis two years ago, but I’ve grown so close with the people of this town – you, especially – it’s like I was born and raised here! Although in reality I was born in Kentucky and raised in Boston and Maine, but it was more of a figure of speech, you know?”

John paused awkwardly. “Sure.”

“I can tell you everything you need to know,” Lucius offered, a little too enthusiastically for John‘s taste. “There isn’t a secret between us. We’re best friends, you know.”

“You mentioned that before,” John replied, eyes narrowing in doubt. 

Lucius leaned in close, whispering in hushed tones, “You once called me a closer friend than Ronon.” He pulled back quickly. “Oh, but don’t tell him that. The big guy tends to get... jealous.”

John nodded, clearing his throat. He suddenly had a very good idea about the type of man this Lucius was and did his best not to roll his eyes. “Right, well… it’s nice to see you again… ol’ buddy.” The words tasted bitter on his lips. “I have to get going now.”

“Oh, right.” Lucius nodded in understanding. “Don’t want to keep the missus waiting. I’ll see you around?”

“Right,” John replied uneasily. 

Lucius nodded like an overly eager puppy, but allowed John to turn and make his way once again toward Elizabeth’s house. John couldn’t put a finger on it but something about that man – something indefinable – had all of the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end. He lengthened his strides to put some distance between them, but by the time he returned to the house, his melancholy had sunk even deeper, twisting and turning until his mood was as black as coal. 

\--x--

 

Elizabeth settled Dillon down next to John at the dinner table with a small smile. “Look after him for a few minutes? I need to get something from the back.”

John forced himself to plaster on a smile in return, stomping down on the rush of terror that he hoped didn’t show on his face. Meeting his eyes for a brief moment, she quickly turned on her heel and bustled out the door leaving John alone with the baby. 

For the first few minutes it looked as though everything would be fine. Dillon seemed to find ways to entertain himself, mainly by sticking everything within grabbing distance, including John’s spoon, into his mouth and slobbering all over it. When John reached for a napkin and began wiping his chin clean the baby caught John’s hand, his fingers curling tightly around John’s pinky. Dillon pulled it closer for inspection and for a moment John thought he was going to suck that into his mouth as well. 

Elizabeth was right – innocent looking and a troublemaker. He was definitely John’s kid.

But then, for no reason that John could discern, Dillon blinked his hazel eyes up at John, glanced around briefly and let out a piercing wail. 

John jumped, wincing. “Whoa, okay.” He threw a look behind him in the hopes that the crying would have drawn Elizabeth back. Apparently he wasn’t that lucky. Frowning, John turned back to the howling baby and cautiously lifted him up and into his arms. Dillon squirmed in his grasp, balling his hands into small fists around John’s collar. 

“It’s okay,” John soothed, fumbling for words. “Uh, Daddy’s here?”

The baby cried louder.

For the next few minutes, no matter what John did in an effort to calm Dillon down, nothing seemed to work. He bounced him on his shoulder, he patted his back, he even sniffed slightly to smell if the boy needed changing. As far as John could tell, he didn’t. Dillon continued to cry until his face had turned to a distressing shade of red.

When Elizabeth finally returned to the kitchen, John’s shoulders slumped in relief. He quickly handed Dillon over to her and blithely ignored the dirty look she threw at him for his obvious eagerness to get rid of the child. Once in Elizabeth’s arms, the baby quieted down instantly.

John wasn’t sure if he should have been insulted or not.

When dinner finally began, Elizabeth settled Dillon down beside him again. Thankfully the boy had apparently decided that the wailing didn’t need a repeat performance. But as John quietly settled in to the first home-cooked dinner he remembered having in ages, he realized that the scene he was experiencing looked like the quintessential picture of domesticity. He didn’t know why, but the thought caused him to quickly lose his appetite. He drifted off into thought again, pushing the food around on his plate idly as he continued to realize the full scoop of the situation he had found himself in.

Funny how perfection even had its drawbacks.

“So,” Elizabeth said softly, wiping her hands on the washcloth over the kitchen sink. “Are you going to tell me what’s bothering you or are you going to brood some more?”

John froze, realizing that he’d been so lost in thought that he had barely said a word throughout the entire meal. He glanced to Dillon briefly and tried to keep his voice light. “Nothing, just… you know, thinking.” He winced at the pathetic response but had no idea what else he could say. 

Elizabeth just quirked an eyebrow and leveled him with a look that had always had him fighting the urge to spill his soul to her. It still worked.

He bit back a sigh, letting his fork clatter onto to the plate. He found himself unable to look her in the eye. “The Wraith are still out there.”

Elizabeth paused for a second, thrown. “Yes, they are.”

“But,” John continued uneasily, trying to even out the unexpected gruffness in his voice, “but I’m still here.”

“Yes, you are.”

He forced himself to meet her eyes, trying not to flinch when he saw her defensive posture, the way she was bracing herself for something painful was plainly written in her rigid stance. He hated it all the more because it was justified. 

“I love you, Elizabeth,” he said softly, honestly. “I’ve never loved anything more, but… that just doesn’t make sense. I shouldn’t have gotten married if the Wraith are still out there.” 

Beside him, the baby began to wail.

\--x--

 

By the time nightfall had arrived, John was certain that the simple life just wasn’t for him. What had begun yesterday as a surreal and pleasant dream had quickly deteriorated into something awkward and far too painful to be anything other than real. Elizabeth had secluded herself with the baby after he’d made his confession over dinner. He knew he’d hurt her badly, but worse still was the fact that he wasn’t even sure how to go about making it up to her because he’d only been telling the truth.

Fighting the Wraith was what he was meant to do. He couldn’t love Elizabeth like she deserved until he was able to lay those demons to rest. He’d always thought that way – even in his darkest moments.

A few more visitors and well wishers had stopped by, but either because of John’s tense demeanor or Elizabeth’s awkward silence the townsfolk quickly made themselves scarce. Even Vala - a woman John had never known to hold her tongue on any issue - had stared at one and then the other and quickly made her excuses to leave, practically shoving her companion - Daniel - out the door with her in her haste. 

John knew he wasn’t getting the best portrait, but he was close to declaring that married life just wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Or if it was, he wasn’t the man for it. If he was brutally honest with himself, a voice in the back of his head had always whispered that sentiment to him but he had constantly tried to convince himself that it would have been different with Elizabeth.

He went to their bedroom closet to gather up some spare sheets and pillows, fully intent on making his bed on the couch to save Elizabeth the trouble of arranging it. It was obvious from the way she could barely look at him that sharing a bed was the last thing either of them needed tonight. Besides, the only thing that could confuse him more at this point would be to wake up holding Elizabeth again. That all too brief moment had been one of the few pleasant things to occur during this entire ordeal, but John wasn’t sure if he deserved a repeat performance.

Just as he was closing the closet, Elizabeth’s silhouette appeared at the bedroom door. She was dressed only in a heavy cotton nightgown, and for a woman that had been avoiding even glancing in his direction all day, her piercing gaze was suddenly too direct. 

John cleared his throat and held up the bed sheets in his hand. “I’ll sleep on the couch.”

He made a move to walk out of the bedroom but Elizabeth stood in his way, watching him with those green eyes of hers that made him feel like she was seeing right through him.

“John,” she said at length, then paused to shut the door behind her. She pivoted to face him, jaw set in determination. “We need to—”

“Talk,” John finished for her. “Yeah, I figured we couldn’t avoid that forever.”

Elizabeth shook her head. “No, that’s actually not—” she stopped herself and visibly regrouped. “Look, John, this isn’t… I need to show you something, but don’t take this as… ” 

She frowned, eyes sliding shut in frustration as she trailed off yet again. John wasn’t sure where she was going with this but he took special note of the blush that crawled up her neck to settle on her cheeks.

“This is ridiculous,” she muttered in something akin to self-recrimination, eyes steeling as they finally locked with his. “You’re my husband and I’m going to show you something. This isn’t a form of seduction, though.”

John froze, his mind stalling. He found himself immediately presented with two problems inherent in that sentiment. One, Elizabeth merely uttering the word “seduction” abruptly conjured up all types of involuntary reactions and images, most of them inherently paradoxical to her intentions. Second, Elizabeth immediately began undoing the buttons that ran down the front of her nightgown. The thick cloth quickly fell open to reveal a thin wisp of material underneath, and before John could find his voice she quickly shrugged out of the outer layer, letting the heavy gown drop to the floor, leaving her clad in a small, white slip that left very little to his imagination.

John remained stock still in front of her, his eyes roaming involuntarily over the unprecedented display of milky white skin that had his brain ceasing all function entirely. 

He swallowed hard. “Elizabeth—”

She stepped forward, curbing any response when she reached for his hand and without any hesitation guided it to her chest. “This is what I need you to see,” she whispered in explanation, “what I need you to understand.” He dragged his gaze up from her body, forcing himself to meet her green eyes even as he could feel the warmth of her skin on his fingertips. Elizabeth continued to cover his hand with hers and held it pressed to her body.

“Elizabeth, I don’t think you fully understand the concept of seduction. ‘Cause this, right here, is consi—”

Her voice turned softly amused. “John, just stay quite for second, would you? Let me explain.”

John nodded obediently.

“You want to know why you settled down with me?” Elizabeth kept her eyes locked on his. “It’s this, right here.”

She guided his hand lower, brushing the strap of her slip aside so that it fell from her shoulder. John’s attention couldn’t fight the pull of her skin and that’s when he saw it, finally allowing himself to set eyes on what Elizabeth had wanted him to see all along.

The ugly scar was jagged and long, beginning at her collarbone and trailing down her chest, disappearing under the material of her slip, right toward where her heart beat, the pulse of which John could feel steadily thudding against the splay of his palm. He could tell it was an old wound, now fully healed, but the pucker of raised scar tissue still marred her pale skin. 

Without thinking John drew closer, peering at the offending mark with his eyes and tracing it with his fingertips. It was a stark blemish on her otherwise perfectly milky white flesh, and John immediately forgot about the impure thoughts he’d been struggling to ignore just moments ago.

He snapped his gaze up to meet hers, eyes hardening. “Where did you get this? Who did this to you?” He didn’t even realize that his voice had gone rough, cold, the threat in it directed at the person that did this to her. 

“It was an accident,” she answered quietly. “Nobody did this to me. There was a storm that swept through Atlantis years ago, John, one of the worst we’ve ever seen. The entire town was nearly ripped apart. I suffered this injury when my store literally came down on top of me.” Her voice grew soft, distant. “It took the townspeople nearly a day and a half to find me underneath all the rubble.”

For a moment he couldn’t find his voice, his mind already working quickly to conjure up the images she spoke of. 

“You weren’t there when the storm hit – you couldn’t have known it was coming. No one knew. But you were there when they pulled me out. You were there when Carson told everyone that I had suffered too much blood loss and there was little hope of me surviving the night. You held my hand and told me to fight anyway.”

Her eyes pricked with unshed tears but she swallowed hard and continued in an unsteady voice. “You believed I had strength left when no one else did, even when I was …slipping away.” Her eyes hardened, the affection he had always known was there staring back at him more plainly than he had ever before witnessed. “I heard your voice.”

Her hand fell from his but he couldn’t make himself release his hold on her. His palm continued to press against her chest, covering the reminder of the injury that had threatened to take her life.

“When I came to, you were there. You looked… God, John, you looked like death warmed over. Do you know what you said to me then?”

It didn’t take much effort for him to hazard a guess. Casting himself into that moment was morbidly easy for John to do. He still remembered with stark clarity the fever that had swept through Atlantis years ago and how Elizabeth had succumbed to it with near fatal results. The fear he had felt then had been more overwhelming than any other emotion he had ever known.

Faced with the possibility of losing Elizabeth again - especially to another enemy too intangible for him to fight - would have left him stricken. Even now, the mere knowledge that Elizabeth had suffered such a wound had his stomach twisting in knots. He suddenly knew with certainty how he would have handled the situation, what it would have done to him.

He lifted his gaze to catch hers and hoped that she could see the depth of his understanding. “I promised you that I would never leave you again. Not for the Wraith. Not for anything. I said you were the most important thing in my life and I would never let go of that.”

Elizabeth nodded with relief. He brushed away a tear that spilled down her cheek with his thumb and then, overwhelmed with emotions he couldn’t even begin to describe, he dragged her closer to brush his lips lightly against hers. Tentative at first he sipped at her lips, instantly inebriated by the soft, simple contact. When she sighed into his kiss he only grew bolder allowing his tongue to part her lips and slip inside.

He set his pace slow to savor the taste of her - and she tasted like home, like warmth and love and things that should have been far too fragile for him to hold, but somehow weren’t. Everything he’d ever dreamt of was still promised in her lips, and even with the heavy weight of the past day pressing down on him he realized there was nowhere else he’d rather be. 

All of the pent-up frustration, anger and confusion that had been building in him bled away and into this passion. His hand threaded through her hair and held her to him, needing desperately to get closer, to lose himself in her warmth and wrap himself around her.

Their first kiss melted into another and then another, each one growing in heat and hunger as neither made a move to pull away. His hands brushed down her arm and settled against the swell of her hip, and her thin slip was slippery and light and John could feel the heat of her skin radiating from underneath the thin silk. The sensation drove him over the edge, made him grow reckless. Before he could stop himself, he had backed her against the wall, pinning her with his body, and his hands roamed over her greedily in search of more skin. 

Elizabeth responded with instant familiarity to his demands. He was too absorbed with the feel of her to immediately make the connection in his head that this woman had felt more than just his kisses. This woman was his wife. He focused instead on the way her hands threaded through his hair and her fingers scraped against his scalp as she matched his advances with abandon. Her tongue invaded his mouth, shockingly demanding and insistent and John founding himself moaning her name against her lips. 

It was usually Elizabeth’s uneasiness, her hesitation that made John hold back. But here and now her desire, her movements, paralleled his own. When she unabashedly pressed her body flush against his he hissed, but not even the increasing need for oxygen could make him pull away from her.

“John,” she breathed, finally tearing her mouth from his. “Take me to bed.”

He stilled. The breathless moment of hesitation that followed was overwhelming as John struggled for control. He pulled back just enough to gaze into her eyes, the depths of which were completely trusting and accepting - completely open. 

He licked his lips, trying to bring his breathing under control. “Elizabeth,” he began, his voice rough with need. “Don’t say that because I won’t be able to--”

“I don’t want you to stop,” she insisted.

He groaned, pulling away from her completely as he spun away from her. He scrubbed his hands over his face and fought for command over his body. He couldn’t look at her, couldn’t risk meeting her eyes, because Elizabeth was standing in front of him and telling him to take her to bed and he was not strong enough for that. Not by a long shot.

After a silent moment she stepped closer, displaying no coyness as she placed one hand over his heart. The gesture was simple but overwhelming. The contact drew his attention back and his eyes greedily drank in the sight of her in the white slip, her skin flushed and begging to be touched. She didn’t blush like he was used to, like she had every other time he had so plainly regarded her with unveiled desire. 

“John.” She slowly reached for his shirt, beginning to undo the top most buttons carefully. He stood frozen under her touch, unable to tear his eyes away from her as she slowly worked her way down his chest. “You are my husband.”

“Yeah,” John stammered, eyes following her hands. “What happened to that whole ‘this isn’t a form of seduction’ bit?” 

She smiled softly. “That was before.”

His shirt fell open revealing his white bandages underneath, the remnants and reminders of the injury that had landed him in this predicament in the first place - married and unable to remember. Frozen with guilt in front of his beautiful and willing wife. Carefully she pushed his shirt off his shoulders, letting it fall to the floor. John couldn’t even begin to describe in words what it felt like to have Elizabeth undress him like this. The undertaking of simply her hands had him overwhelmed, easily overpowered. 

“I am your wife, John, and I’m asking you to take me to bed.”

He realized then that the war he was fighting was futile. He caught her wrist, hesitating for just a moment more, and then slowly drew her back to him, dipping his head lower to capture her lips – 

– And the baby cried off in the distance.

The sound snapped him out of his haze, stopping him mid-descent. Elizabeth’s eyes slid shut, groaning slightly as her head fell against his shoulder and rested there for a second in frustration. 

“Just out of curiosity,” John queried, trying to even his gruff voice. “Does our kid do anything other than cry?”

A soft laugh escaped her lips. “He can be very demanding for attention.” Amusement lit her eyes as she looked back up at him. “I wonder who he got that from?” 

John was still trying to recover use of all his faculties, so the barb went without retort. 

Elizabeth reached up to place a soft kiss upon his lips, and then pulled away. “I’ll just be a moment,” she insisted, reaching for her robe. She shrugged it on, glancing back at him as she moved toward the door. Pausing at the threshold she locked eyes with him again and arched an eyebrow. “In a moment,” she repeated, making it a promise.

John nodded mutely.

Even with Elizabeth out of the room, the memory of her lips and the feel of her body still made it difficult for John to think. Shirtless and fighting off a natural dose of frustration, he cast his eyes about the room in an effort to get his bearings and then - out of the corner of his eye - he just managed to catch a hint of something.

A figure on the other side of the window.

John whirled fully to find Lucius Lavin peering at him through the glass. He felt his blood begin to boil before he even realized his legs had begun moving.

\--x--

 

“Enjoy the show?!” John demanded as he roughly pinned Lucius to the wall outside his house.

Eyes wide, Lucius stammered out his indignant response, “What? I wasn’t doing anything, I swear! I was just walking by and I saw your lights on. I didn’t see a thing!” He whimpered a little. “Please don’t hurt me!”

“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t!” John snarled.

“I’m your g-guardian angel!” Lucius stammered, growing frantic. “If I saw anything, it was because it’s my job to watch over you!”

The sheer absurdity of that statement made John pull back a bit. “What?”

“Guardian angel!” Lucius repeated hysterically and then closed his eyes in horror as he began mumbling to himself. “Oh my God, they’re going to demote me for this. First the coma, now this. I told you - I’m not supposed to tell you that! They’re going to be so angry with me.”

“Maybe you should be worried about my anger,” John retorted. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Lucius shrank back from him. “Uh, nothing. Nothing at all.”

John’s eyes narrowed threateningly. “Whatever game you’re playing I’m not falling for it.”

Lucius whimpered again. “It’s not a game, Sheppard. You just have to realize--”

“Realize what?”

“Your perfect life.”

“What?” John snarled.

Lucius squeaked, shoulders slumping in surrender. “You won’t understand,” he insisted, then frantically tossed a look over John’s shoulder. “Oh, thank God, Mrs. Sheppard! Please get your husband off of me!”

A moment after John whipped his head around to find an empty yard with no sign of Elizabeth, he realized he’d fallen for the oldest trick in the book. The only problem was that when he turned back to Lucius, the fistful of his shirt that John had clutched in his hands was suddenly empty. Lucius had abruptly vanished from his hold, managing to somehow disappear into thin air.

“Lucius!” John barked. “Don‘t hide, you coward!”

The garden outside Elizabeth’s house was entirely silent, but John searched the grounds anyway. Lucius was no where to be found. If John hadn’t known better, he would have called Lucius’ disappearing act impossible.

No one could just vanish like that. No one.

\--x--

 

By the time he had reentered the house, the cold air from outside had chased goose bumps across John’s bare chest and arms. Even that, though, did little to cool the heated urge he had to continue his search for Lucius. John needed to teach the pervert a lesson or two about spying into other people‘s homes. 

Guardian angel? John shook his head in anger. Peeping Tom was more like it.

John wandered toward the back of the house and found Elizabeth still tending to Dillon. As he quietly rested against the doorframe he realized that she was nursing the baby, the strap of her slip halfway off her shoulder to accommodate her breastfeeding. He couldn’t see much with her back to him, but even the small glimpse made his chest tighten unexpectedly. 

As he stood watching Elizabeth - his wife - feed their baby from the threshold of their nursery, the thick fog of lust and then abrupt anger had faded and his thoughts turned pensive. He realized suddenly that he’d kill any man that would ever disgrace her - had nearly had a mind to inflict an unholy amount of pain onto Lucius for simply spying on her in an intimate moment. And that instinct and need to take care of her should extend to protecting her from even himself. The heavy weight in the pit of his stomach was guilt at his earlier behavior, and no matter how he tried to rationalize it away, it gnawed at him. 

He couldn’t take this step with Elizabeth - not like this. It didn’t feel right. 

He’d wait for his memory to return.


	3. Chapter 3

While John was no closer to retrieving the lost years of his life, he did eventually settle into a semi-routine. The routine of a married man. He slept on the couch in the living room at night - even over Elizabeth’s protests - and got up each morning at nearly the crack of dawn with the sound of a baby crying. 

The first few days, John had let Elizabeth deal with Dillon entirely. Still awkward around the child that had the same hazel colored eyes as him, John barely knew what to do with the kid. During the day, he always made sure that Elizabeth was within shouting distance whenever he was left watching over his son. Those moments were always filled with extreme anxiety and this odd sort of silent awe that John couldn't even begin to describe in words. It left him floundering about like a fish out of water, but he couldn't say the feeling was particularly unpleasant - if that made any bit of sense.

His son would wiggle in his arms. Not shift or move about, but actually wiggle - constantly, like... he didn't even know what. He just knew that it was really, really odd having a small human being in his arms that never stopped moving. He wasn’t sure if that was normal for a baby or not, but Elizabeth assured him it was for their kid.

“He can’t stay still,” she teased. “I’m almost afraid of the day he starts walking.”

There were moments, though, where Dillon would look up at him with big, expressive eyes and John had the feeling the kid knew - just knew with a weird sense that only the innocent could ever possess - that the man holding him was a clueless stranger in place of his father. Those moments always and inevitably lead to crying.

...But then there were also other moments where John had to admit he had one of the cutest, most affectionate babies he had ever seen. The gurgle and warm bubble of laughter John had unexpectedly inspired one afternoon by lifting Dillon into the air above his head and whooshing him through the air like an eagle had given him an absurd amount of joy. His son liked to fly, apparently. 

Before he had even realized it, the days quickly flew by and John wasn’t surprised anymore at the laughter and crying that echoed throughout Elizabeth’s house at all hours of the day. John grew used to the sound - even found it oddly comforting on occasion - but he still let Elizabeth continue to bathe, feed and change Dillon without interference.

He played with the kid, but it was another matter entirely to take care of him. John knew the difference, and he also knew he wasn’t ready for the latter. Thankfully, Elizabeth didn’t push him on this.

She didn’t push him on the other matter, either - the one that lay between a man and his wife. After that first night, they hadn’t shared much more than kisses, some slightly more passionate than others, but John always found himself fighting for restraint. The struggle was a hundred times worse than anything he had ever felt before, because he knew Elizabeth had no objections at all and wouldn‘t stop him if he pushed her. It was only his own twisted sense of honor that held him back.

The townsfolk continued to come by and visit, and John had been ‘regaled’ with more old stories and anecdotes in the past few days than most people were ever told in their entire lives. Nothing jogged any bit of his memory back. And as John quickly became the most popular man in town, Lucius Lavin never dared show his face again to John. It was for the best, he decided. He never asked after the annoying man, because if John ever saw the idiot again, he’d likely turn violent. 

While John healed from his wounds and tried in vain to regain his memory, the days slowly turned into weeks, and soon autumn came round and started gradually turning the green leaves of Atlantis into rich colors of reds and yellows.

That’s when things got interesting again. 

\--x--

 

John had heard that Jonas Quinn was nearly dead on his horse by the time the black mare had made its way to the edge of town. The townsfolk had instantly been incited into an uproar over the man, and while Jonas’ prone body was lifted off the horse and immediately taken into the sanctuary of a nearby house, it took fifteen minutes before Carson was able to make his way across Atlantis and reach his new patient.

John had heard from one of the gossipers in town that Jonas had been two breaths shy of death by the time he‘d finally managed to receive proper medical care. He wasn’t sure if this was an exaggeration or not - gossip had a tendency of taking on a life of its own in Atlantis - but that didn’t dampen his haste to ride across town to find out for himself.

The moment he saw Jack standing vigil outside the house, he knew it hadn’t been an exaggeration. The older man’s shirt was covered in blood and the stern gaze he leveled at the onlookers that had gathered around to gawk at the spectacle was nearly deadly in its venom. Briefly, John felt ashamed that he was amongst the spectators, but Jack quickly waved him forward from the crowd without showing any hint of irritation directed at him.

“Have you seen Cameron or Teal’c?” Jack asked gruffly.

John shook his head. “Not today.” He paused awkwardly. “How is--”

“--Bad,” Jack cut him off. “Doc's trying to stop the bleeding now. He lost a lot of blood. I‘ve already given some of my own.” He paused briefly, glancing down at his arm. A cloth was pressed firmly at the crux of his elbow, the color of the material slightly reddened. “So far, Jonas hasn't reacted to my blood... in a bad way.”

John held back a flinch. In a bad way. The words hung in the air, heavy and thick between them. John knew the radical new procedure - one that was scarcely used at all in most parts of the west - was a risky proposition. Providing blood to another man in need of it often left the recipient with an equal chance of dying as being saved by the method. 

“What happened?” 

“What do you think happened?” Jack snapped. “The Wraith were out there. God damn it, I told that boy not to cross the territory without company. He never listens to a damn thing I say!”

Whirling around in anger, Jack threw the washcloth in his hands clear across the porch and then kicked the railing nearby for good measure. The move proved to be as stupid as it had looked. Jack immediately yelped in pain, hopping on his good foot as the other dangled in mid-air. A few of the townsfolk nearby stilled and looked up at the spectacle, and when Jack noticed, he turned his wrath against them. 

“And what are you looking at?” Jack barked. “Show’s over. Move along! Nothing to see here!”

“Jack,” John tried.

“I said, move it!” Jack snarled. “Now!”

The townsfolk wisely realized it was best to listen to the man. They quickly dispersed, and John watched as Jack paced the length of the porch like a lion caged, all the while favoring his good leg awkwardly. 

John knew that despite appearances, Jack O’Neill had always had a soft spot for Jonas Quinn. The younger Indian Agent had come into town long ago, and while Jack had kept up the pretense of annoyance 'til this day regarding the characteristically over-eager gentlemen, everybody knew it was just for show. Jack looked after his own, and Jonas Quinn was a part of that group.

John licked his lips. “Hey, I know--”

Jack waved him off. “Save it. I don‘t want to hear it.”

He subsided immediately with a nod. Fair enough.

But Jack still needed to vent. “I swear to God I have had it up to here with those Wraith,” he cursed. “You know Teal’c was nearly lynched by them? Yeah, last year on the way back from the Cheyenne settlement.” He paused, narrowing his eyes at John as he realized who he was talking to. “Right, of course you wouldn’t know that. You don’t even know what the hell happened last month, much less last year.”

John felt a solid weight settling into his stomach. “I know enough. I know the Wraith need to be dealt with.”

Jack grunted. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

Carson surged out the front door, stalking forward with purposeful strides. “We’ve got a problem.”

Jack whirled around. “Jonas alright?”

“So far, aye. He seems to be taking Jack’s blood. Bloody miracle he made it all the way back to Atlantis after losing so much.” He sighed, wiping blood from his hands on his red-tinged apron. John was struck with the thought that Carson looked more like a butcher in that moment than a doctor before the Scottish man quickly continued speaking, “But we’ve got ourselves another problem.”

John tried not to groan. “What?”

“Jonas was mumbling the entire time,” Carson explained. “He said the Wraith that had him were planning a raid on Hoffan in a few days' time.”

Jack stiffened. “The town that’s fifty miles south of here?”

Carson nodded. “Aye, so the lad tells me. He heard his captors talking about it before he managed to escape.”

“How did Jonas manage to escape?” John asked curiously. 

Carson sighed. “I don’t know and I didn’t ask. I’m just thankful the lad made it back here alive.”

John nodded. He knew that Jonas was an intelligent man who was disconcertingly brilliant in a variety of fields, but he had never considered such ingenuity to extend into any situation that involved the Wraith. Obviously, John had been proven wrong.

“In any case,” Carson continued, “assuming that he holds through the night, I think Jonas will be out of danger.”

Jack nodded. “Yeah,” he murmured, his earlier heated anger having cooled almost instantaneously. He cleared his throat and turned to John, his eyebrows lifting suggestively. “And now we know where those bastards will be in a few days.”

John nodded. “Yeah, how about that?”

Between them, Carson shook his head in exasperation and quietly reentered the house.

\--x--

 

Plans were made almost immediately, and the usual suspects were corralled together within an hour into a hunting group of willing participants. Cameron, Teal’c, Lorne, and even Paul Davis had volunteered to come along. No one was surprised when Ronon had been ready for the hunt before anyone else had even heard the first details. 

After the logistics were quickly sketched out and the group agreed to leave for Hoffan after early dawn the next morning, John exited Jack’s place through the back door and spotted Ronon waiting for him. The larger man pushed off against the wall and together they made their way to the horses. Ronon was silent, and John’s head was too busy churning over the details of the raid to make idle conversation. So when Ronon finally broke the silence, John barely heard him.

“Don‘t do this.”

John tossed him a distracted look. “Do what?”

Ronon kept his pace. “Don’t go on this hunt.”

For a second, John almost laughed. Instead the absurdity of the statement - coming from Ronon of all people - was said with such gravity that it made John stop dead in his tracks. He tossed Ronon an incredulous look. “Excuse me?” 

Ronon pinned John with a hard look, and then strode idly next to his horse. “The rest of us can take care of this one.”

John floundered for words. “You’re kidding me, right? Where the hell is this coming from?”

“Where?” Ronon repeated, climbing onto his horse. He quickly settled in and urged his mare into striding a few steps away. “From five years, that's where. Five years you don’t have and don’t know anything about. Think about that before you decide you want back into this life.”

The response was automatic and involuntary. “I should never have left.”

Ronon arched an eyebrow. “Tell that to your wife and son.”

John opened his mouth, but Ronon turned his horse around and was already riding away without a backwards glance. John stared after him for a moment, wondering how to explain away that moment of obvious insanity. Not in a million years would he ever have thought Ronon would be the one to suggest backing down from a fight. It was unthinkable.

He shook his head, trying to dispel Ronon’s words. Yet as he walked over to his own horse, he couldn’t ignore the nagging feeling settling into the pit of his stomach that his friend's words had conjured up. He hadn’t even consulted Elizabeth before making the decision to leave Atlantis tomorrow. She would understand though, right? She’d have to recognize why he was compelled to go, right?

…If she didn’t understand, then it was simply up to him to convince her.

He stroked the horse’s mane, idly tossing back a bewildered look in the direction Ronon had retreated. 

Lucius Lavin stood in the middle of the road.

John whirled around, his face hardening instantly into a cold mask.

Lucius threw his arms up in surrender. “Don’t shoot! I’m unarmed!”

John’s eyes narrowed in annoyance, but enough time had passed since the last time he’d seen Lucius that any homicidal urges he had had abated. The man looked pathetically scared, and even if John would have taken a certain amount of pleasure in tormenting the man a little, he had more important things on his mind. 

He tossed Lucius an annoyed glance before he dismissed him entirely by turning back to his horse. “Not now, Lucius.” He quickly climbed onto his horse, settling onto the saddle and reaching for the reins. “Go back to the hole you were hiding in. I‘ll deal with you later.”

“Sorry, I’d love nothing more than to get out of your hair - which by the way I'd love to know how you get it to do that spikey thing, but...” He laughed, a slightly high-pitched sound laced with nervousness that grated on John’s nerves instantly. “But, see, the thing is I can’t. You’re my charge whether I like it or not, whether you like it or not, so we’re stuck with each other.”

John forced out a breath. “What the hell are you going on about?”

“Remember when we last spoke?” He waved his hands around wildly. “You remember that little moment back there where I said I was your guardian angel? Well, actually I was telling the truth--”

“And I have a gun,” John finished darkly. “Maybe you should remember that the next time we speak?”

He turned his horse around and quickly kicked his heels, prodding the horse into a tempered gallop. He was halfway down the road when Lucius suddenly appeared right in front of him. John abruptly pulled his horse to a stop, then looked wildly at him and then back to where he’d last seen Lucius. The distance traveled was nearly fifty yards. There was no way Lucius could have gotten ahead of him before his horse.

“How did you do that?” he breathed, tossing Lucius a disbelieving look.

Lucius beamed smugly. “Oh, that? That’s nothing. You should see what I can do with time. It’s like a little puppet under my strings. Believe it or not, I once jumped to the ages of Ancient Rome! Yep. Me and Julius Caesar there were good buddies - nice fellow, liked his women.”

John opened his mouth but Lucius just kept talking, his voice turning haughty.

“I actually ended up wowing him and plenty of the royal women there when I volunteered to battle in a gladiator fight in the great Coliseum.” He puffed out his chest like a peacock, turning smug. “You ever heard about one of those? They were these contests where big, burly men fought each other to the death in a big ring. I fought off twenty men at once, and a lion! It was a big beast of a thing, but what you have to understand about a lion is that its mane is surprisingly its vulnerable point. You just have to get a good hold on the hair and tug really hard--” 

“Lucius,” John barked, mouth hanging open. “Are you drunk right now?”

His mouth clamped shut. “Sorry. I get carried away when I talk about my feats of wonder.” He waved his hand dismissively. “But that’s neither here nor there. We’re here to talk about you and how your inability to let go of your burdens is literally threatening your life.” His smile melted away. “Anyone ever tell you that you’re an exceptionally stubborn man?”

John reached for his gun. “Alright, that’s it--”

Lucius halted him with a hand. “Oh, allow me to demonstrate something first.” He snapped his fingers, and suddenly disappeared into thin air.

… Only to reappear magically to John’s left side. 

John just stared at him, struck speechless.

Lucius rocked on his heels, pleased with himself. “Believe me yet?”

He struggled for a response. “How-Wha… how…” 

“I’m a guardian angel.”

John’s mouth hung open, then he groaned. “I’m hallucinating. That’s the only explanation for this. Any of this. I‘ve just gone completely and irrevocably--”

“Oh, we don’t have time for the whole insanity bit,” Lucius cut in. “Look, I’m kinda on a time limit here so just pay attention, okay?”

John snapped his head up. “What? No, not okay! First, tell me how you just--”

“I’m trying to tell you if you just stop overreacting for a second and let me--”

“Overreacting?! I’m not overreacting. If anything, I’m being entirely--”

“You don’t have to raise your voice. It’s rude to yell--”

“I wasn’t yelling. Now I’m yelling!! And you--”

Lucius’ shoulders sagged. “Alright, fine,” he snapped. “You leave me no choice.” 

He snapped his fingers, and John opened his mouth to ask what the hell he’d done now, but suddenly his voice was gone. He opened and closed his mouth, trying to produce sound but nothing but a small, rasping noise escaped his throat. He glanced up at Lucius with wide eyes, and then narrowed them in lieu of the threat he couldn’t speak out loud. 

Lucius squirmed under his gaze. “Look, you left me no choice, okay?”

John threw him a menacing glare.

“Just listen, alright? This,” he waved his hands around, indicating their surroundings, “isn’t real. Not entirely… Well, actually it is. But it’s more like a reality that could happen, will happen if you let it. It’s one of the possibilities that could occur. You know what I mean?”

John threw his leg over the horse and hopped down, quickly advancing on Lucius.

“Whoa, whoa!” Lucius sputtered, raising his hands. “Wait!”

John suddenly froze, speechless and now rendered immobile on top of everything else. He tried to force his limbs to move, but nothing cooperated in the least. Lucius had frozen him like a statue. His eyes immediately watered with the inability to blink, but he continued to glare hard at Lucius. 

Lucius squirmed. “This,” he repeated, waving his hands around again, “isn’t where you’re supposed to be. I brought you here so you could see your future. Something to live for.” His shoulders sagged. “I hadn’t anticipated that you’d be a stubborn jackass, though. You have to stop fighting. Start accepting. If you don‘t…”

He trailed off, turning self-conscious as he crumpled a little in embarrassment. John stared at him as he fumbled a moment for words.

“Well,” Lucius continued in a small voice, “I kinda messed up and wasn’t watching out for you like I was supposed to be doing. You remember that day Kolya chased you down? Yeah, well, I was supposed to make sure you got out of it alright… And, well,” he paused awkwardly. “You’re kinda in a coma now.”

If John had been capable of movement and speech in that moment, he wasn’t sure what his reaction to that would have been. It wouldn’t have been pretty, though.

“You have to find something to live for,” Lucius continued quickly. “Seize something to fight for. It’s this whole concept of self-actualization and mumbo-jumbo, and honestly I‘m not entirely too clear about the details.” He laughed nervously. “This is kinda my first time trying it.”

“Sheppard?” Another male voice rang out from a distance. “Sheppard, what are you doing, man?”

Abruptly, the force holding John frozen released him and he stumbled forward a bit, quickly trying to regain his balance. He turned to find Cameron swiftly striding towards him on a large stallion, John’s own horse wandering down the street listlessly next to the other gunslinger.

“I--ah,” John stammered, then quickly whirled back around in search of Lucius.

The portly, annoying man was nowhere in sight.

“Sheppard?” Cameron called again, coming to a stop next to him. “What are you doing out here?”

John scrubbed a hand over his face and struggled for words. “Just,” he muttered faintly, licking his lips, “just losing my mind.”

\--x--

 

The front door swung shut behind John as he wandered in out of the chilly night, into the warmth of Elizabeth‘s living room. Still deeply preoccupied by the strange, recent encounter with Lucius, he barely noticed that the house was quiet and dark. The stark silence was unusual in a place normally filled with the sounds of a child, but John was too busy trying to convince himself that Lucius had been an hallucination - a side effect to his head injury, maybe - to particularly take note of his surroundings. 

He tossed a distracted glance around, quickly shrugging off his coat and just as he hung it up, he turned to find Elizabeth standing at the end of the hallway.

She remained poised in the shadows, but John immediately saw the tension in the set of her jaw and the square of her shoulders. For a moment, they did nothing but stare at each other as a pregnant hush settled in, and John knew the words - the fight - that was imminent before she even opened her mouth.

“You’re going, aren’t you?” she asked without preamble. “I saw Jack stocking up for a journey. So soon after Jonas’ injuries, it can only mean one thing.”

John forced his voice to stay steady, “We know where the Wraith are going to be in a few days.”

“And you’re going with them for the hunt.” This time it, wasn’t a question.

John exhaled, stomping down on the rush of guilt that seized him from inside. He didn’t want to give the impression that the decision had already been made, but the fact of the matter was… well, it already had. John was going. Despite what Lucius had told him, despite the tie of a family here, John still felt compelled to leave in the morning in search for the Wraith. 

After a moment, he opted for blunt. “Yes, I am. I have to. The other men are all going--”

“The other men?” Elizabeth cut in, voice flat. “The other men don’t have a family. They don‘t have a six-month-old child to look after.” She paused, and then her voice turned cold, angry. “Don’t talk to me about the other men, John.”

“Elizabeth,” John began. “Don’t do this. Don’t make this about--”

“About what?” Elizabeth asked heatedly. “About your family? I’m sorry, but everything you do is about your family. That’s the way it should be. That‘s the way it‘s supposed to be.”

“And it is!” John lashed out, surprising himself with his sudden vehemence and anger. “You think I’m not doing this as a father? As a husband? You’re not safe with scum like the Wraith out there! No one is!”

“God, you stubborn man!” Elizabeth fumed, striding forward until they were face to face in the heated confrontation. “Why can’t you let the other men take care of this? Why does it always have to be you?”

“I don’t know,” John retorted. “It’s probably this funny thing called duty. Responsibility.”

“Don’t you lecture me about duty and responsibility,” Elizabeth warned. “Don’t you dare patronize me like that.”

“This isn’t patronization, Elizabeth. It’s the truth. I have an oath--”

“What about the oath you gave me as my husband? What about your sense of responsibility to me and our child?” She stopped, eyes filling with such misery he could practically see the flickers of green darken in her eyes. “What am I supposed to tell our son when he grows up without a father? If you keep going out on these missions… it’ll only be a matter of time before one day you won’t return.”

John‘s throat closed off for a moment, but he quickly clamped down on any fear and responded, “You tell him that his father died for a good cause. You teach him those same principles - the ones that I know you believe in just as strongly as I do.”

Elizabeth exhaled, turning away and John knew he had struck a nerve. Because as greatly as Elizabeth feared anything happening to him, John knew she cared for the greater good just as much. She was more of a person of principle than he was. 

He continued softly, “You tell him that you married a man that knew right from wrong.” 

“I married a man that I want to grow old with,” Elizabeth responded, turning back to him. “Can’t I be selfish in wanting that above all else?”

John paused, offering her a dim smile. “I don’t think that’s selfish at all. It‘s called being human.”

Elizabeth shook her head. “I spent seven years waiting here for you while you went out to god-knows-where and did god-knows-what. I know what the Wraith mean to you. I know that better than anybody else.” She paused, clearing her throat. “But I don’t think I can do that anymore. I don’t like being made to feel like shackles, but--”

“Elizabeth,” he cut in gruffly, horrified. “You aren’t a burden.”

She continued as if he‘d never spoken. “But you talk about duty and responsibility, and honor.” She looked up at him, her eyes latching onto his. “But it’s those same things that prevent you from taking your wife to bed.”

John struggled for words, caught off-guard. “What does that have to do with this?”

“Everything. I don’t think you clearly see what you’re doing anymore,” Elizabeth replied. “You don’t see your life for what it is now. You are a married man with a child, John, not the gunslinger you were five years ago.”

Yet he was. In his head, John still felt like he was. Elizabeth clearly saw through that, and then suddenly he remembered his encounter with Lucius again. The man - the guardian angel, whatever he called himself - he had warned John that his inability to let go of his burdens was slowly killing him. 

A coma. The realization of his perfect life. Releasing his burdens. 

All those words played across John’s mind. It was all too confusing for him to think about - he didn’t even know if he believed it or not - but now Elizabeth was voicing eerily similar complaints and that was just simply too much. 

Elizabeth continued, drawing back his attention. “I won’t spend the rest of my life lying in a cold bed, trying to comfort myself with thoughts of honor and duty.” She sighed, reaching up to splay her palm against his cheek. “I have a life to live, and John Sheppard, I don’t have that life without you.”

She kissed him then, her soft lips ghosting against his in a light touch. John’s heart had already been thudding away from the fight, blood pumping loudly in his ears, but now his pulse kicked up a notch for another reason entirely. He instinctively returned the kiss, his hands settling on her hips and drawing her to him as he took in her mouth. The kiss deepened slowly, gradually, until his tongue had parted her lips and slipped inside to explore. He felt her melt, press into him with the full weight of her body. 

But then she pulled back, drawing away from him enough to rest her forehead against his. “Go tomorrow.”

Panting slightly, John needed a second to play catch up. “What?”

“Tomorrow,” Elizabeth replied, looking up at him. “Go with the other men. Do what you have to.”

Her sudden change of heart left him floundering, and he couldn’t stop himself from voicing the bewilderment. “Why?”

She licked her lips, moistening them as she took a breath. “Because that’s the man I married, so I really shouldn‘t be surprised.” 

He was left speechless, gob smacked, with only one thought registering in his head. He was the luckiest son of a bitch in the world to have Elizabeth as his wife.

“Elizabeth, I--”

“Go tomorrow,” Elizabeth cut in, firmly. She paused, then spoke softly in a whisper, “But stay tonight.” 

This time, John didn’t have it in him to fight both himself and her on it. He didn’t have it in him to deny that he wanted this, wanted her, more than anything in the world. Elizabeth’s acceptance and understanding was the final straw. She always understood him in a way he couldn’t even understand himself.

The resolve he had so stubbornly maintained didn’t so much shatter as ebb away. It wasn't flogged down by the lust he thought would have been his breaking point, but instead it was beaten back by another emotion. 

“Are you sure?” he asked softly.

Elizabeth regarded him with warm, emerald eyes. “I’m not the one that’s confused.”

He slowly stepped forward, wordlessly, a hesitation in his movement that only lasted a second. Then seized her lips again, drawing her mouth with his own in a possessive kiss that held nothing back. Hands threaded through her hair, pulling a slim waist firm against him, and Elizabeth moaned against his mouth in a way that went straight through him. Years of longing and denial had reached its limit and the same voice that had nagged at him before – prevented him from holding her like he had wanted to do – was silenced completely.

Elizabeth must have felt it too, must have felt his stubborn resolve break in the way he kissed her. “Not here,” she gasped between kisses. “Bedroom.”

He nodded, but he couldn’t command his body to do anything other than what it was currently doing. The kisses grew frantic, sloppy, aggressive, needy and he could feel Elizabeth’s chest move against his own with every intake of breath. There wasn’t a sliver of space between their bodies, and John had spent so long - years just like this, so close but never close enough.

It was Elizabeth who finally pulled away. “Bedroom,” she muttered again, turning around. 

John caught her around the waist and pinned her back against him. As she slowly made her way down the hallway, he kept her close to him by suckling on her neck, pushing her dark curls of hair aside to nip at the spot where her pulse beat, trailing kisses down from ear to shoulder. He didn’t dare let an inch of space stretch between them as they gradually moved down the hallway, and the sound of Elizabeth’s broken breathing made him delirious with arousal. 

When they reached her bedroom, he kicked the door closed behind him with his heel.

“Shh,” Elizabeth chided. “Dillon’s sleeping.” John was too distracted to answer this with anything more than a mumbled response, and she gripped tightly at the possessive arm wrapped around her waist. “John,” she breathed, tilting her head aside to allow John better access to a spot along her neck. “God, I’ve missed you.”

“I’m right here,” he assured softly, moving to nip at the earlobe. “Right here.” 

He turned her around in his arms and captured her lips again with an open mouthed kiss, hot and desperate and needy. She pulled him down to her and returned every advance he had with a familiar touch of her own, and then, abruptly, Elizabeth was unbuttoning his shirt and undoing his belt buckle and John was suddenly aware of the threshold he was crossing. He had kissed her like this plenty of times before, but it had never progressed any further. The sudden awareness of unfamiliarity, of how to proceed from here on out, slowly wormed its way past his haze of lust and managed to catch John by surprise. 

He stilled, and pulled back just enough to have Elizabeth’s warm breath playing across his own skin. Her green eyes caught his, dark and hooded with desire before they radiated with an understanding that didn‘t need words. 

Instinct took over again as he kissed her softly while she slowly pushed his shirt off of him, leaving him clad in trousers and underclothing. He was more preoccupied with other things. Blood nearly boiling at the expectation of skin, he untied the strings that drew her clothes tight to her body. This was an undertaking he had fantasized about since almost the first moment he had met her. 

The dress she wore looked simple, but his fingers fumbled with a lack of coordination, overridden by a desperate need to feel skin and heated flesh immediately. He had thought about this for so long, desired Elizabeth in a way he had never desired anything else in his life, and now that they were finally at this point, the clothing proved to be too much of a distraction. He shifted his attention back to Elizabeth‘s lips. 

“Dress less, Elizabeth,” he growled in annoyance as he kissed her again, hands working blindly to undress her.

He could feel her lips curl upwards in a faint smile against his lips. 

When she had finally shrugged off her outer dress, she still stood in a soft, flowing petticoat and white chemise. He growled again in frustration, but Elizabeth only continued to be amused. That quickly abated when he started edging her backwards with his body, towards the bed. The back of her knees hit the edge of the bed, and she pulled him down on top of her as she fell back onto the mattress. It sunk with the weight of them.

They quickly got lost in the feel of each other as they kissed and tumbled around in bed, her dark curls tangled in disarray and her clothing turned completely rumpled under the exploration of his aggressive hands. John thought she had never looked or felt more beautiful. 

God, he couldn’t remember why he hadn’t done this before. What had been wrong with him?

Her legs slipped between his and the hem of her petticoat was driven upwards to reveal bare skin. John’s attention settled on her toned legs, moving his hands down, brushing against the bare flesh and slowly pushing the cloth higher, his hands savoring the feel of her soft, warm skin as he continued until he had exposed her thighs. He couldn’t restrain the groan that escaped his lips when her petticoat pooled around her waist, her underwear underneath just a wisp of material too easy a barrier to remove. 

He shifted down to place kisses along her inner thigh and Elizabeth immediately released a whimper that barely sounded like her at all. He grinned against her skin, pulling her underwear down her legs as he moved upward. His throat went dry as a desert when he finally exposed her and--

“John,” she gasped, his name sounding broken and weak. 

Her thigh was soft, so smooth - smoother than he’d ever dreamt of. She called for him, though, pulling him back, quickly drawing his body up to her so she could kiss him senseless. He wasn’t quite sure how she managed to do it, but even with him pawing at her greedily, she worked herself out of layers of clothing, slipping the chemise over her head and pushing the petticoat and underwear down her legs… until he could feel nothing but heated flesh under his touch.

He pulled back from her, propping himself up with hands on either side of her, soaking in the sight of Elizabeth nude underneath him in the dim light. Pale skin, a valley of a slim waist, her thighs soft and her breasts filled his palms completely when he cupped them. She moaned when his thumb brushed over her nipple, head falling back onto the pillow as her eyes slid closed. 

There was an imperfection on her body, though - the scar that ran jagged along her collarbone. He stared at the offensive wound. The sight of it now somehow inspired even more emotion than it had been that night when she had first shown it to him. 

“John?” she asked, her voice tinged with anxiety.

Her eyes were open again and staring at him. He realized he’d been fixated on the scar, and when he locked gazes with her again, the look in her eyes was painfully self-conscious. Resisting the urge to curse, he tried instead to voice the thoughts that were running through his head.

It took only a second to realize he didn’t need words with Elizabeth now, not here like this. Instead he dipped his head down and ran his tongue across her collarbone, across her scar - as if his touch alone could soothe it and make it disappear. Elizabeth gasped faintly, and so John repeated it, trailing his mouth over it until he moved down to draw one of her breasts into his mouth. She arched into him when he ran his tongue over her hardened nipple, moaning in pleasure. John figured his own satisfaction in performing the task was thanks enough.

Her fingernails dug hard into his back, but it helped ground him, feel the weight of reality - it assured him that this wasn‘t a fantasy, wasn’t a dream he would wake up from any minute now with sweat-soaked sheets wrapped around him and a stiff cock to handle. He had woken up so many nights like that, with a phantom taste of Elizabeth on his lips. Too many nights to count. 

This was already better than any of those dreams. 

She quickly worked the belt of his trousers, and when she pushed the material down his thighs and exposed him, the heat of her naked skin was scorching against his own. 

He forced himself to pause, the cost of it nearly too much. “Elizabeth?”

“John,” she whispered back. “Now. Please.”

His cock brushed against her, her thigh searing and she arched up to the point where he almost penetrated inside. He made a noise that wasn’t even close to a real word, hissing at the sensation, and Elizabeth repeated the action, encouraging. 

Elizabeth, was all he thought. Elizabeth.

Both of his hands settled low on the swell of her hips, and with his breathing heavy he slipped inside her completely for the first time and - God, she felt so good. So warm and wet around him - unexpectedly tight. Elizabeth gasped against his mouth as he slowly pulled out and thrust back in, the sensation overwhelming, moaning her name in a dark voice he didn’t even recognize as his own.

Her leg wrapped around his waist, her heel digging into his backside in encouragement, and so he continued, slowly finding a rhythm that left both of them panting and breathless and aching for more. Pushing in and out, the thrust of his hips aided by the pressure of her movements. She writhed beneath him, pushed up against him, whimpered his name softly as she encouraged his speed, her body arching up to meet him every time he pushed down. In kind, John could barely formulate a word, lost in the sensation and feel of being inside of her, driven by carnal instinct alone. 

This is what he had been waiting for all these years… and it had been worth the wait.

As Elizabeth bit her lip to keep from screaming out, John had the same difficulty with breathing. His voice turned ragged, raw, broken as he worked in and out of her. He watched as her body flushed with heat, his lips ghosting over her exposed skin wherever he could. The air between them was thick and warm as his body moved into hers, in and out, in and out. Her hands balled into fists around the bed sheets and her eyes screwed shut, and he knew she was as lost to the feeling as he was.

But he wanted to see her eyes, he wanted to watch her face as the sensations fluttered across. Dipping his head to nuzzle her neck, he spoke with a rough voice thick with need, “Don’t close your eyes, Elizabeth.”

She sobbed his name, knuckles turning white as they fisted further around the bed sheets.

“Look at me,” he breathed in a plea. “Don’t close your eyes.”

Tilting her head towards him, she finally complied. Her eyes opened, and the flickers of dark green were unguarded and candid as they locked gazes with him. He seized hold of one of her hands, prying them loose from their grip on the bed sheets. As he threaded his fingers through hers and settled her hand beside her head, holding it there in a fierce grip, he continued their rhythm of making love with gazes locked. 

A mindless time passed, and when he knew that she had finally found her release, it was because of the way her body shuddered and arched - the tremors and ripples worked through where he was buried deep inside of her. Her grip on their linked hands turned almost painfully tight, and she called out his name in a piercing cry, unable to keep her voice hushed any longer.

It was the sound of his name said without restraint or control - her voice sounding unlike anything he had ever heard from her before – that caused John to lose his own control. It shattered as he thrust into her twice more and then he felt his release tear through him like something fierce and possessed. He shuddered and felt euphoria spread through his body in a way where words could do it no justice, and then he collapsed. Afterwards, spent and exhausted and blissfully satiated, he barely managed to bolster himself up on arms either side of her, careful not to crush her with the weight of his own body.

As their breathing got under control, she pulled him down, maneuvering him behind her so that he spooned across her back, curled up against her naked, sweat-soaked skin. Their legs intertwined with each other, and as he circled a possessive arm across her stomach and drew her back flush to his chest, he brushed a kiss across her shoulder and she tasted so different but still exactly the same - Elizabeth.

He opened his mouth to say something, but the words failed to come out. Overwhelmed, and yet content, his throat closed off with the thought of sprouting words when actions had just spoken for them so well.

“I know,” Elizabeth whispered, turning back to acknowledge him with eyes full of awareness. “I know, John. Me, too.”

He tugged her closer, their bodies still slick with sweat and heat, inhaling in the scent of her. She fell asleep almost immediately, but as exhausted as John suddenly was, he couldn’t follow her into slumber. Instead, he watched her as she slept, an indefinable emotion settling into his stomach, blooming with the recognition that he had denied thus far. 

This was home.


	4. Chapter 4

The sheer lazy joy of curling up to Elizabeth’s skin during that night inspired a feeling in John he couldn’t properly describe with words. She slept through much of it, but around four o’clock in the morning, the familiar sounds of a baby stirring in the nearby nursery drew John’s attention away from his sleeping wife.

He slipped out of bed as quietly as he could, shrugged on a robe, and padded across the hallway to find Dillon had roused from his sleep like he had every other night. The routine was one John was well familiar with. On most nights, Elizabeth simply feed him and Dillon would fall back asleep almost immediately. A few of the nights, though, Dillon seemed more interested in playtime than anything else.

Tonight, he wasn’t crying or being particularly fussy - in fact, he was gleefully preoccupied with trying to chew on his own toe. John stared at his son, amused. The contortions of Dillon’s exploit seemed almost impossible to him, but somehow Dillon had managed to bring his leg up and was presently slobbering all over his foot. The moment Dillon caught sight of John, though, he relaxed and then held up both arms.

“Want up?” John whispered, and then slowly bent over the crib to pick Dillon up. He looked down at his son with a raised eyebrow. “What do say? Let’s leave Mommy alone for a little while and go outside?” John pretended to wait for an answer. “Yep. Sounds good to me, too.”

He pulled back to grab some blankets from the crib. After swaddling his son up in more layers that what was probably strictly necessary, John quietly slipped out the front door and into the night. The front porch had a cedar swing that hung from the canopy up above, and as John took a seat and settled Dillon onto his lap gently, they both had a nice view of the patch of wildflowers in front of Elizabeth‘s house. He pushed off with his feet, and as the bench swung softly, John held his son in his arms and stared out at Atlantis.

His son continued to play quietly, amusing himself by letting his gaze wash over everything in silent wonder. He never let his interests rest on any one thing for long, and even when Dillon eventually settled back against John’s chest, John knew he didn’t have his son’s attention. 

“Cute kid,” Lucius commented, emerging out of nowhere.

John jerked his head up in surprise, then quickly settled back down with his eyes narrowing into slits. “Would you stop just appearing like that?”

Lucius grinned. “It adds to the effect.” He leaned closer to Dillon, waving a hand hello as his voice turned an octave higher. “Hey, little buddy! How you doing tonight? Who’s been a good--”

“Lucius,” John cut in, darkly. “Do me a favor? Don’t talk to my kid.”

A flicker of hurt flashed across Lucius’ face, but it quickly disappeared as the pudgy man stood straighter. “Fine, if that’s the way you want to be. I can just leave you to it.” He turned around, making an exaggerated exit as he huffed in annoyance and started muttering to himself about ingratitude as he walked away.

Despite himself, John found himself calling the man back. “Wait! Lucius, wait!” He watched Lucius freeze, but the guardian angel made no move to turn around. “I’m sorry,” John continued reluctantly, sighing. “It’s just… I’d like to teach my son from a young age not to talk to strangers. And they don’t get any stranger than you.”

With his back still to them, Lucius did a one-shouldered shrug. “Well, then, maybe you should just tell the boy that tidbit of advice when you leave tomorrow. It’s likely to be the last time he’ll ever lay his eyes on you.”

John’s brow burrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Lucius heaved an annoyed sigh, turning around. “You know, it’s amazing. You really are as stupid as your hair makes you look.”

“Lucius,” John started to warn.

“Save it!” Lucius groused, turning annoyed. “You know, I’ve done nothing but try to help you and you‘ve been nothing but ungrateful. Well, guess what?! No more Mr. Nice Guardian!”

“Shh!” John urged in a harsh whisper, tossing a look back at the front door. “You’ll wake Elizabeth.”

“Highly unlikely, seeing as you and this little guy are the only ones that can see or hear me.”

John paused. “Really?”

Lucius shrugged, calming down. “Technically it should only be you, but kids? They got this weird sense for the spiritual.” He waved again at Dillon. “Kid sees me as clear as day.”

John tugged Dillon closer to his chest. “Right.” He paused awkwardly. “So, uh, what are you doing here this time?”

“We never really got to finish talking last time.” Lucius ambled over to the front porch, resting his hands against the wooden railing. “You know, about realizing the perfect life?”

John waited a beat, the memory of Elizabeth in his bed still fresh in his mind. “Yeah, I think I understand that one better.” He glanced down at Dillon, his thoughts turning less wayward. “Suddenly a lot better.”

Lucius grinned, and for a moment John wondered how much Lucius was privy to regarding last night. Wisely, the other man chose not to comment. “Well, I’m glad.” The grin slowly melted off, the other man‘s face unexpectedly turning somber. “But we’ll see when the moment comes if it’s enough.”

“When the moment comes?” 

“This is all a test, Sheppard. When the moment of truth comes - and hopefully you’ll know it when it happens - you’ll decide whether this is all enough for you.”

“It is,” John insisted, surprising himself more than Lucius with the strength of the declaration. “I didn’t think before… I never knew…” he trailed off, sighing. “It’s different now. I can‘t explain how.”

One night seemed to have changed his entire perspective on a lot of things. He didn’t realize that bedding Elizabeth would mean that much to him, but things seemed to shift into place. It felt like he had shifted into place. 

Except Lucius reminded him of reality again. “But are you still going with the other men tomorrow?”

Leaving in the morning seemed like the last thing in the world he wanted to do… but his life had never been ruled by what he wanted. Not even that much had changed and so John wavered. A part of him still couldn’t parse his life that easily - between family and duty. They both weaved into one another. Leaving tomorrow to hunt the Wraith was as much about his family than it was about anything else. He did it all to protect them from the horrors he’d seen in his life. 

John groaned, dropping his head into his hands. “I don’t know. It’s not that easy.”

“You think the perfect life ever is?” Lucius shot back. “Look, I don’t know much but one thing I have learned over the years in this line of work is this: The perfect life isn’t perfection. It isn’t having all your desires and needs fulfilled like some fantasy. The perfect life is just this: what you make of it. What you sacrifice for it. When the moment comes, what are you willing to sacrifice?” 

Before John could pull himself out of his confusion, Dillon slowly reached out and clung to his fingers, peering up at him. John pulled back, looking down at his son and felt his throat constrict. 

“Decide,” said Lucius.

\--x--

 

Lucius left and Elizabeth eventually found them some time later, emerging from the house as she drew closed her robe. “Hey, there you guys are.”

John looked up and smiled. “Didn’t want to wake you.”

“It’s freezing out here.”

John shrugged. “It’s not so bad.” 

Elizabeth caught his eye, and even though John tried his best to cover up his agitation, she still managed to pick it up within a second. “Something wrong?” 

Dillon started fussing in his arms, reaching for his mother. As well behaved as the tyke had been thus far, John knew that when he became finicky, only Elizabeth could handle him. She wandered over and picked him up before the crying had the chance to begin, and settling him onto her shoulder, she offered John a small smile. 

“I’ll just feed him and get back to you?”

He nodded, and she wandered back into the house. When he followed her in, he paused only briefly at the nursery before he decided to settle back into their bedroom. As he stretched out on the mattress and gazed vacantly up at the ceiling, he tried to put his restlessness to ease. The burden of tomorrow’s decision weighted him down, though, even if he'd finally realized exactly what it was he had to do. 

When Elizabeth appeared in the doorway, she tilted her head in exasperation. “What?” she sighed, circling the bed to perch on the edge of the mattress next to him. “You’ve been up for an hour and I have to fight for your attention all over again?”

He reached out to tug on a loose strand of her hair, curling it around his fingers to toy with it. “How do you know I wasn’t thinking about you?”

“I like to think that I don’t inspire that particular expression on your face.”

“I’m staying,” he replied without preamble. “Tomorrow, I’m staying.”

She caught his hand, stilling his fingers in her hair. “Where did this come from?”

“I thought about it. Just seemed like the right thing to do.”

Elizabeth paused, her expression carefully neutral. “John, I don’t want you to say this tonight and then regret it tomorrow. If you have to go, then go—”

He pushed off on his elbows. “I don’t,” he insisted. “I want to stay.”

“John—”

“Just trust me on this. I know what I have to do.”

Elizabeth didn’t look convinced, but she didn’t say anything in protest either. The pinched expression of concern on her face made him uneasy though, so he pushed off on his elbows again and captured her lips in a kiss, hoping instead to distract her from her concerns. As he snaked her around the waist and drew her down against him, Elizabeth didn’t exactly offer any resistance. 

He turned playful, hands wandering down her backside as their bodies tumbled and rolled across the mattress. She laughed against his lips and John savored the sound of it nearly as much as he savored the feel of her body. They ended up with tangled limbs, Elizabeth’s body draped over his. She pulled back, raking a hand through his hair in a way that left John shuddering. They both took a moment to catch their breaths. 

“What am I going to do with you, John Sheppard?”

He smirked, a wicked gleam in his eyes. “I could think of a few things.”

She kissed him again as he tugged the length of her nightgown higher. John fell onto his back and guided her on top of him, and Elizabeth pulled the material free. Then he was pressing against her and inside of her, and she was moving on top of him in way that left John struggling with broken breathing. As they quickly got lost in the sensation of each other, they made love again until the dawn had cast its glow clear across the town of Atlantis and the light of it had filtered into their bedroom. 

He didn't know it, but dawn would spell trouble.

\--x--

 

Half of him was expecting to wake up somewhere else - some place where he wasn’t married and had no child and the last five years he’d tried to so valiantly to remember had never really happened at all. Lucius had led him to believe as much. Instead of waking up from the coma though, he woke up exactly where he’d fallen asleep – with Elizabeth in his arms. He didn’t particularly think he got the raw end of any deal.

He did wonder, though, if deciding to go or stay hadn’t been the “moment” Lucius had been referring to. Whatever the case, half of him was relieved to still be here and the other half was concerned about what it meant for him and his predicament.

The morning activities flew by quickly and soon John stood on the outskirts of town, watching as the other men made the last minute preparations for their journey. They hadn’t protested when he declined to join their party – which, to add salt to the wounds, had grown from a group of five to a group of ten. (Several other men in town had volunteered to join the outfit when news had spread of its intent, even Lorne who had his own wife and was expecting a child within six months.) It was a bitter sight to see so many others preparing, but John forced himself to hold his resolve. 

Even the perfect life had sacrifices, right? This one he could afford, but not his family.

Still, even though no one offered a protest and no one uttered a question, John felt like everyone was staring at him with accusations in their eyes. He knew it was probably all just his imagination. Still, the invisible wound festered.

It wasn’t as invisible as he thought. Elizabeth pulled him aside before the others left, handed him his satchel and canteen, and said emphatically, “You have everything you need for a four day journey in this. Go, John.” 

John sputtered a protest. “What? No, I don’t—”

“We both know you’re not capable of staying back,” Elizabeth cut him off. “I’d much prefer that we didn’t do this whole song and dance. Just go, John. I know you want to.”

He paused. “It isn’t a matter of want.”

Her eyes softened. “I know.”

He searched her face for any sign of recrimination, but when he found nothing but understanding, John tossed the bag over his shoulder. In that moment, his impulsiveness and impatience had the opportunity to override everything else. John reiterated to himself that deciding to go or stay hadn’t been the “moment” Lucius had been referring to. Maybe it was something else? 

Something on this journey? 

“I’ll come back,” he promised. “Everything will be alright.”

“You better,” Elizabeth replied. “Just stay safe.”

He kissed her then, unmindful of the dozen other men that were mulling nearby. The deep kiss lingered longer than what was appropriate for public, but John didn’t care. He was kissing his wife goodbye and he was damn sure going to do it properly. When he pulled back, Elizabeth was flush in the face. She glanced around and found the other men had respectfully turned their gazes away. She still glared up at him.

He grinned, unrepentant. “Have I told you how much I love you today?”

“Several times, in fact,” Elizabeth answered. He swooped in as if to kiss her again, but Elizabeth pulled back, mindful of the others. “John,” she warned, blushing.

It amazed him that after the things they had done last night, she could still blush. 

“Sheppard,” Cameron hollered from on top of his mare. “So, you comin’ or what?”

John nodded silently, the smile on his face melting off. In the wake of his decision, he purposely pushed aside the small feeling of ill-ease that had settled in the pit of his stomach. This was what he had done his entire life, and if Elizabeth understood that, then what did he have to lose?

He turned to gather the reins of his own horse, mounting on quickly. “I’ll see you in a few days,” he said to Elizabeth.

As the other men quickly took off on their horses, John hung back until he was the last man left behind. He stared at Elizabeth as the dirt from a dozen hooves was kicked up into the air, intent on lingering for just a moment more. She waved to him and he wordlessly tipped his hat back and then a second later, before he had the opportunity to change his mind yet again, he forced himself to turn away. He kicked his own horse into a gallop, riding off into the horizon behind the others.

Behind him, Elizabeth’s lone figure marred the backdrop of Atlantis as she stood watch.

\--x--

 

It took them two days to reach the edge of Hoffan. The days were long and weary with a relentless push towards their destination, but in John’s opinion the nights were far longer. They were harshly cold and filled with nothing but thoughts of Elizabeth and Dillon and a feeling of desperate unease that wouldn’t go away.

To make matters worse, when he wasn’t worried over his family, his mind still lingered on Elizabeth and how they’d only spent one night together. That night had managed to make the ones that followed seem ten times lonelier. He had an unholy amount of time to lie awake in the dark replaying the memories over and over again in his head. That was just an entirely new form of cruel and unusual punishment as far as John was concerned.

By the third day, they had reached Hoffan. Luck had chosen to land on their side as it was obvious the Wraith had not yet carried out their siege on the small town. The Hoffans greeted them outside the local town square, where Jack did his best to spread the word regarding the immanent attack in his usual manner – blunt and brisk. The words of caution thankfully encountered little resistance. Most people were all too aware of the threat the Wraith posed in the countryside, and the Hoffans had quickly shown gratitude and hospitality for the assistance rendered in fighting back.

The day toiled onward as preparations were made and the anxiety of waiting stretched the long hours into what seemed like days. The Hoffans were mostly peasant folk, but Jack, Cameron, and John had quickly organized the many able-bodied men into groups and set up sentries all around the perimeter. Teal’c and Ronon enlisted other men in creating bunkers and barriers of protection, and by nightfall, the small town had been transformed into a highly defendable territory.

Day turned into night turned into day again, and so it went. Even as they resolutely stood watch, the anxiety in the air grew and every hour with it, every hour that passed with no sign of the Wraith, the ill-ease in the pit of John’s stomach intensified.

Something was not right.

\--x--

 

“Three days,” Cameron muttered as they walked their section of the perimeter. The other gunslinger took a swig of his canteen, staring out at the unmarred horizon as they moved. “We’ve been here for three days and there’s not a hint of the Wraith anywhere nearby. I’m not a man to wish for trouble – oh, who I am kidding? Something interesting better happen, and soon! I’m going stir crazy here!”

John glanced sideways at him, smirking. “Tell you what? If no one tries to shoot at us by the end of the day, we’ll head out to the old mill factory and have ourselves a marksmen competition. Make things more interesting.”

“Please, I’d beat you any day of the week and twice on Sunday. That ain’t interesting.”

“How ‘bout we put money on it?”

Cameron grinned enthusiastically. “Now we’re talking!”

John barked a laugh, kicking a rock loose from the ground and sending it careening into a patch of grassland ahead of them. A hush fell, as the two men continued to walk in companionable silence, John was still far from peaceful. He let his gaze drift over the scoop of Hoffan. Beyond them, a few of the local townsfolk kept their distance as they went about their daily routine. Much of the activity was hampered by the presence of so much firepower – and so much fear – but the Hoffan citizens proved to be handling the predicament as well as they could manage. 

Still, John knew that as much as these people appreciated their protection, they would be quite giddy to get rid of the unfamiliar gunslingers that had wandered into their town. Atlantis’ finest marksmen were all currently wandering around listless. He could understand why that would make so many people nervous. The sooner they got out of here, the better - although that would only happen once the Wraith had been dealt with. John wondered exactly when that would happen. Like Cameron, patience had never been one of his virtues.

John stopped short when he spotted Lucius Lavin leaning against a wall, peering with a rather lewd expression settled onto his face as he gawked at one of the local woman nearby - one that had a “well endowed” figure. The female in question seemed ignorant to his presence – as was everybody else, it seemed – and when she bent over to pick up a pale of water, Lucius stared blatantly at the view it offered.

John rolled his eyes and turned back to Cameron. “I’ll catch up with you in a second. There’s something I gotta take care of.”

Cameron shrugged, walking ahead. “Take your time. Not like we got anywhere to be,” he groused.

John turned on his heel and quickly jogged over to where Lucius was… well, still leering wide-eyed. Once he finally caught the other man’s attention, John sent a pointed glare in his direction and motioned with a nod of his head. He wandered down into an empty alleyway behind the local barbershop, and Lucius trailed after him looking a little reluctant to have abandoned the ample-bosomed woman.

“Hey, I don’t suppose you know that girl’s name?”

John whirled around. “Where are the Wraith?”

“And hello to you, too.” 

“Lucius,” John warned. “I have zero patience right now. Tell me--”

“I’d say you have zero brains, actually.” Lucius cut in, darkly. “Of all my charges, I’ve never had one as problematic as you! I mean, you actually go looking for trouble! Who does that?!”

“I did what I had to—”

“Oh, don’t give me that! You made your decision, and now you have to live with the consequences.”

John froze. “Consequences? What consequences?”

Lucius shook his head in exasperation. “You really didn’t listen to a word I said, did you?” He turned away and his expression slowly melted into something miserable. “I’m sorry, Sheppard. I really am. But you left us no choice.”

Something about the way Lucius was avoiding eye-contact sent bells and whistles ringing off in John’s head. He took a menacing step forward, his voice going harsh. “What’s going on, Lucius? What have you done?”

Lucius fidgeted, looking every which way except at John. “It’s what you’ve done. This is all out of my hands.” He sighed, and reluctantly met John’s gaze. “You made your decision, and it wasn’t your family.”

“No,” John replied adamantly, suddenly feeling nauseous. “That’s not… Elizabeth said it was alright to—” 

“She told you to go, but you’re the one that chose to. Even after you knew what was at stake!” He paused, shoulders sagging. “You made your decision, Sheppard.”

“No,” John repeated in a daze, shaking his head. “No.”

Lucius paused, then glanced back and forth around them as if to make certain no one else was eavesdropping. The action seemed inane considering no other human being could see the guardian angel, but John realized that maybe Lucius wasn’t concerned about other humans. As the saying went, in a world proven to hold more things in heaven and earth than was dreamt of in his philosophy, John wondered who else – or what else - was watching over him.

“Look,” Lucius said, dropping his voice into a whisper. “There is another way. It’s unpleasant, but…” he trailed off, his lips thinning into a tight line. He straightened immediately and abruptly snapped his head heavenward. “What? Oh, c’mon! I barely said anything to him!” 

John dimly followed Lucius’ gaze upward, but nothing but a clear skyline greeted him. He waited a beat while Lucius continued to stare heavenward, his face quickly turning a red splotch of embarrassment. Something was indeed communicating with Lucius.

“Five more minutes? Please? Aw, c’mon. I know this didn’t go as planned - although really, it wasn’t my fault.” Lucius paused again, then tightly grimaced. “That was just an oversight, really. Not my fault.” A beat. “Oh, well that part--” A pause. “Yes, I suppose I could have handled that bett--” Another hesitation. “Alright, alright! I screwed up! Happy?! I’m trying to fix it now!”

“Who are you talking to?” 

“Shhh,” Lucius warned. “I’m just talking to my boss.”

John felt his throat go dry, and he didn’t care how ridiculous it sounded, for a moment he couldn’t stop himself from faintly voicing the question, “God?”

Lucius threw him an incredulous look. “No. A guy named Larry.”

Oh. John felt distinctly stupid.

Lucius sighed, shoulders dropping as he turned sober again. “Go home, Sheppard. There’s nothing for you here. The Wraith aren’t coming.”

“Jonas heard wrong?”

Lucius’ eyes darkened in sympathy. “Jonas didn’t hear wrong. He heard exactly what the Wraith wanted him to hear.”

“What do you mean?”

“The Wraith wanted you here," Lucius explained softly. "They never planned to attack Hoffan.”

Oh god, John realized. Atlantis. 

\--x--

 

Thankfully, John hadn’t needed much to persuade the others that their return was required immediately. He knew that he only needed to get Jack to see his way of things before the others would quickly fall into line. He cornered the Deputy Mayor of Atlantis, pulling him aside and simply emphasized the vulnerability of Atlantis as bluntly as he could possibly manage. With so many of its finest gunslingers away, Atlantis was left unnervingly defenseless. 

“Oh, for crying out loud,” Jack muttered, and then cursed under his breath as the implications became too apparent too ignore. 

In the end, the party had split in half, erring on the side of caution. A few stayed behind to keep their posts in Hoffan for one night more, while the fastest of the riders – John, Ronon, Cameron and Lorne, among others - had quickly agreed to journey back home. 

On the backs of swift horses, they rode relentlessly to Atlantis in half the time it had taken them to venture away. By the second nightfall, they had reached the town borders with their horses mightily abused during the course of the travel. The riders weren’t fairing much better, but the horizon of Atlantis did more than enough to rejuvenate their flagging energy. Even as they approached in the darkness of the night, the spectacle that welcomed them back sparkled with vengeful red from miles away.

“Sweet Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Cameron breathed in horror. “This is a sight I wished I’d never seen.”

Atlantis had been set ablaze. 

With the edges of the town already devastated, nothing but smoke, burnt lodgings and broken buildings to its name, even then, John could make the outline of a fire still burning strong in the heart of Atlantis. Off in the distance, the fiery monster continued to consume everything in its path. The image was horrific, but John didn’t wait for the shock to register, didn’t waver at the sight of the only place he’d ever called home being reduced to rubble and ash.

Even as it felt like his entire life was burning up right before his eyes, he pushed onwards in search of the only thing he couldn’t live his life without – his family.

\--x--

 

“Elizabeth! Elizabeth, can you hear me?!!”

His voice was drowned out by the raging fire that had mushroomed from building to building, but John kept shouting as he worked his way across town. The search was chaotic and disjointed as his attention kept getting pulled away by the figures of various citizens of Atlantis trying furtively to battle the fire. He had spotted Daniel and Vala dousing the flames of her café with buckets of water, and Samantha Carter tending to a burn victim in the middle of the streets. Images of the others registered as well, and John had been harpooned and pulled aside to help wherever he could. His search for Elizabeth and Dillon ended up delayed and impeded by the immediate desperation of others. 

Later, when Lorne had reunited with his wife, it had been a bittersweet image for John to witness. “They came this morning,” Kate explained with an ashen face, clutching her husband. “They rode in with large numbers, quickly set the buildings on fire, and then like that, they were gone. We never even had the chance to muster a resistance. There were so many, Marcus, and then suddenly there was so much fire.”

John felt only a twinge of guilt by intruding on what should have been a private moment. “Have you seen Elizabeth?”

Kate turned to him with wide eyes, shaking her head. “I’m sorry. We lost track of each other. I haven’t seen her since this afternoon, several hours ago.”

“She was alright?” John persisted, voice hardening. “She had Dillon and they were safe?”

Kate’s face crumpled. “At the time, mostly, yes. Elizabeth had burns on her arm. She gave Dillon to Laura and still went to help the others, though. I don’t know what’s happened to her since then.” She paused, trying to interject some life into her words. “Dillon’s safe, though. I saw him just a moment ago with Laura.”

“Where?”

She pointed down the street to Carson’s clinic. John took off without even muttering a farewell, his legs carrying his swiftly across the street and into the one of the few buildings that the townspeople had managed to extinguish quickly. The building was scorched, but still standing. John could immediately tell why this place had been given such special attention – it served as a hub for tending to the wounded. On his way through the various rooms, he saw over a dozen different burn victims lying in beds and mattresses strewn about. 

One occupied bed in particular caught John’s attention. A body was completely draped over with a white sheet, obviously in respect to a deceased person. The harsh image of a dead body hit John squarely in the chest, cementing the calamity of the day. 

John almost didn’t want to know the identity of the body, but with nagging horror in the pit of his stomach, he couldn’t help but note the feminine outline of the form.

Elizabeth, he thought, before he could stop himself.

He glanced away and quickly chastised himself for jumping to conclusions. With his heart caught in his throat, John tried to convince himself that there was no possible way the body belonged to Elizabeth. No conceivable way. He slowly forced his legs to move in order to prove himself right. 

“Don’t.”

John flinched, and then whirled around to find Rodney sitting up in a bed across the room. He looked hollowed out, worn and weathered around the edges. There were bandages covering his right arm, and caked blood on his shirt. His own or someone else’s, John didn’t know. He just knew instantly that Rodney looked nothing remotely like his normal energetic self. 

“You don’t want to see her that way,” Rodney explained. “The burns… they aren’t...” he trailed off, looking ashen. “You don’t want to see her that way.”

John’s voice went low, hollow. “Who?”

Rodney’s lips thinned into a tight line before he answered, “Janet Fraiser. She… I saw it happen. She pushed Daniel out of the way of a falling beam. The fire swallowed her whole before we were able to put it out.”

John’s throat closed off completely, unable to formulate a response. Silence settled in and his own paralysis was only shattered when the blessed sound a baby crying from nearby echoed off the walls. John never thought the noise would ever be so beautiful. He glanced down the hallway, then turned back to Rodney.

“Look, I gotta--”

“Go,” Rodney cut in, waving him off.

John paused awkwardly, then expelled a breath and turned away. As he wove through the claustrophobic corridors and passed the injured men and woman lining the walls, the smell of burnt flesh assaulted his senses. He emerged into the main room and found Dillon in Laura’s arms, red faced and wailing. Despite his son’s obvious agitation, at the sight a surge of overwhelming relief rushed through John like never before.

He hadn’t consciously realized how much Dillon meant to him - how much he‘d grown to love the little guy - until the grim prospect of never seeing him again had become a distinct possibility. The affection was suddenly choking, blinding in its indisputable intensity. He may not have been there for Dillon’s birth, may not have remembered the first few months of his life, but in that moment, John felt an overwhelming connection to him that only a father could ever feel towards his son.

He crossed the room and Laura looked up and spotted him. “Mister Sheppard,” she greeted, with palpable relief and surprise lacing her voice. He nodded back, his attention mainly reserved for the wailing baby in her arms. Laura saw his anxiety and quickly handed Dillon off to him. “He’s been crying all day, the scared little guy,” she explained. “I’ve tried everything I could, but Misses Sheppard was always the only one that could get him to calm down when he got like this--”

She broke off in surprise. Dillon had settled against him, suddenly quiet as a mouse. John wiped the tears stains from his face, murmuring soothing words. As he shifted Dillon’s weight in his arms, the stabbing fear in his chest eased a bit.

“Thank you,” he spoke adamantly, turning to Laura. “Thank you.”

Laura went a little red in the face. “I did nothing but hold him all day.”

“Still,” John insisted, then broke off and glanced around. “Do you know where Elizabeth is?”

Laura shrugged helplessly. “I’m sorry, Mr. Sheppard. I don’t know.”

\--x--

 

The fire was doused by dawn, leaving behind a devastated Atlantis. Every which way he turned, John was struck with the harsh images of grieving families and burnt homes.

He still hadn’t been able to find Elizabeth.

The fear and paranoia had grown over the hours, and as he asked around for any sign of her and received nothing but apologies and hollow assurances, John Sheppard grasped the full weight of fear like never before. Too many people were still missing, and most were eventually found dead by sunrise. 

Jack and the others had returned from Hoffan in the morning, and John had quickly enlisted their eager help in the search. Word had swiftly spread through Atlantis’ remaining number of able citizens, and everywhere he looked, everywhere he went, he had help. He also had pitying looks. Those inspired a sharp blend of fear and anger in him, because John knew they implied a possibility that he wasn’t willing to accept - that Elizabeth had been injured in the fire, or worse.

He wasn’t willing to accept that, wouldn’t rest until he had irrefutable evidence to the contrary. Until then, he did the only thing he could do to keep hope alive. He continued to search.

He left Dillon in the continued care of Laura and Carson, although the latter had his hands full with patients. “You know, it’s funny,” the Scotsman spoke softly just before John had left. “Janet and I used to fight like cats and dogs over patients. Now, just when I need her help the most…” he trailed off, not needing to finish the words.

Janet Fraiser had been one of a kind, a sacrifice too great for the day. 

John kept his attention fixated on making sure the cost of Elizabeth - a cost too high - wasn’t added to the tally. He had too many demons to deal with, too many battles, so he shut away all dark whispers and focused only on finding his wife. Instead, more bodies were recovered, charred and unrecognizable. 

He closed his eyes against the implications of such dark thoughts, and forced his mind and body beyond its endurance. Day and night and then day again, he searched.

He found nothing.

\--x--

 

When Lucius next visited him, it was when John had been wandering the rubble of his own house. There wasn’t much left - the same could be said of all of Atlantis - and John spent the day blurry-eyed and exhausted, finding cruel irony in the fact that just a few days ago, he had been stupid enough to think leaving Atlantis behind to hunt down Wraith was considered the same thing as protecting it from the bastards. 

He had been wrong. The cost had proven too high.

“I suppose that telling you it wasn’t your fault would be pointless, right?”

John glanced up at the guardian angel, too weary to muster any energy in his response. “You suppose right.” He crouched down and continued the process of digging through the rubble, then he soon paused in realization and his eyes cut across the room. “Lucius, I need you to tell me where Elizabeth is.”

Lucius’ eyes flickered down, shadowing slightly. “I’m sorry, Sheppard. I’ve come to say goodbye, and that’s all. I’m not your guardian angel anymore. In fact, I’m not going to be anybody’s guardian angel anymore. I can’t help you.”

John rose to his full height, his voice hardening. “Tell me where Elizabeth is, Lucius.” 

There was no mistaking this for a request, and John made certain that much was apparent in the gruff of his voice and the darkness that washed over his face. He meant business, and if Lucius knew - which considering who or what he was, John was sure he did - then John was willing to do anything and everything to find Elizabeth.

Lucius raised his hands in a placating manner, backing up a step. “You can’t hurt me, Sheppard.”

“Then why are you so scared?”

“Well, you’re a very intimidating man when you want to be.”

“You haven‘t seen intimidating yet!” John barked, propelled across the room until he had backed Lucius into a corner. The other man squeaked in horror, but John felt no tinge of guilt. All that mattered was Elizabeth. “Where is she?”

“I don’t know,” Lucius insisted, and then suddenly vanished into thin air. John jerked back in shock and whipped around to find Lucius reemerging on the other side of the room. “Wait!” he pleaded. “There’s no point in threatening me, Sheppard. I really don’t know!”

His body trembled with restraint, but John kept his voice level and hard. “Then find out.”

Lucius shook his head. “It doesn’t work like that. I don’t get to know.” He paused awkwardly. “And more importantly, neither do you.”

“What?”

“You had your chance at the perfect life, and you left anyway. Now you get this. This nightmare. That’s how it works.” Lucius turned and kicked a scrap of debris across the room. “You don’t ever get to know what happened to her. You live with that for the rest of your life here.”

John’s throat closed off. “No, that’s not… you can’t be serious.”

Not knowing what happened to Elizabeth was somehow more cruel than finding a body. 

“I’m sorry.”

His vision turned blurry, and John didn‘t care about the desperation that sprung up in his voice. “Why? Why are you doing this to me?”

“This is your perfect world gone wrong,” Lucius answered simply. “That’s the way this works now.”

\--x--

 

Elizabeth’s funeral was held the following week, along with the mass memorial of a dozen other Atlantis citizens who’s bodies were never found. A week after that, John packed up everything worth salvageable into a wagon, took his son and left behind the ruins of Atlantis. Others joined him in the mass exodus. The town that had once stood as the lone pinnacle of civilization in the region, the only place that had never kowtowed to the Wraith, was thoroughly destroyed. 

John found it ironic, for as the legend of its' namesake went, in one day and one night the city of Atlantis vanished forever - except instead of plummeting into the deeps of the sea like Plato had written so many thousands of years ago, it had been scorched from the face of the Earth instead.

John endured for only one reason - his son. Dillon became his entire life, and suddenly a lone father in a new world, the adjustment had been harsh and daunting and more than once, John had feared he wouldn’t survive it.

Except he did, day by day. The days melded into weeks and grew into months until it had eventually turned into years. They flashed by quickly, seeming to fill a lifetime in a moment‘s breath. It seemed as though he was watching a play of his life, snippets of everything that would become of his future. 

Dillon would be five before John would settle down in a city for good. He would became a blacksmith, putting to bed his gun-slinging days. Even if he didn’t have Dillon dependant solely upon him for everything, John would have vowed that he would never let his thirst for vengeance or justice blind him to the things truly important in his life. 

He had learned that lesson well.

When Dillon would turn ten, John would build a house with a white picket fence that he was sure Elizabeth would have loved. He would keep in touch with all his friends from Atlantis, but only distantly. By stroke of luck, though, Rodney McKay would settle down into the same city John would end up in, and a strong friendship would spring up over the years. Dillon would soon latch onto the other man with a bewildering attachment, one that was rather humorous considering Rodney’s own normal aversion to children. 

When Dillon would turn fifteen, he would display a sharp intellect too keen for the local schools. Although John hated the thought of separation, Rodney would convince his friend that the boy needed special education abroad to encourage his obvious intellect. John would have preferred if Dillon would simply continue to drive the local schoolgirls crazy with his antics, but he would decide Elizabeth would have wanted what was best for him. He would send Dillon to school in one of the finest establishments in all of the Americas. 

When Dillon would be twenty, John would see him married to a British woman with a dazzling smile that would remind him of Elizabeth. John would become a grandfather to twin boys within two years. 

When Dillon would be thirty, John would be tucked away in his bed when he would feel a pain seize him in his left arm. As he grimaced and reached for a glass of water, he would be surprised to see the image of Lucius Lavin emerging from nowhere. After all these years, with nary a whisper, it would shock the old man.

“It’s time, Sheppard,” Lucius greeted with a jubilant smile, not a day older than he had been thirty years prior. “I think the others have agreed. You’ve learned your lesson.”

\--x--

 

John awoke slowly, the only sensations he was immediately aware of was the glare of the morning light and the pressure of a massive headache. He groaned and attempted to move, a maneuver that turned out to be ill-advised as it lead directly to a stab of pain throughout his entire body. Soon, however, a voice spoke to him – a familiar voice of a woman that John had never thought he’d ever hear again. 

“John?” The soft voice breathed cautiously, and then turned full of life. “Oh, god, John! You’re awake! Carson, Janet, come quick! He’s woken up!”

John peered his eyes open, and found himself staring at Elizabeth.

\--x--


	5. Chapter 5

Epilogue

Two weeks passed, and while John slowly recovered from his injuries, Elizabeth slowly recovered from the emotional turmoil she had suffered while he had slumbered. Elizabeth had never prayed harder in her entire life than during the period of the four days wherein John had been bedridden in a coma. The length of those days stretched far longer in time than Elizabeth had ever realized was possible before. 

Kolya’s man had managed to gun him down during the brawl that had broken out in the saloon miles away from Atlantis. He had been shot twice in the abdomen, but only one of them had turned life threatening. Ronon had thrown his prone body over his stallion and rode swiftly to Carson’s clinic, but too much damage had been wrought. John had been pulled under the shroud of a coma, and Elizabeth had been able to do nothing but sit idly by and watch as his body grew weaker and weaker.

Lingering threads of fear still haunted her today, a full two weeks later, but Elizabeth forcefully pushed them aside. Today, John was being released from Carson’s care and into her own. Considering the trials he had suffered lately, Elizabeth saw this as a victory worth celebrating. She planned on taking full advantage to having complete custody of one wayward John Sheppard for a few weeks. Goodness knows when he next left Atlantis again, her fears would be doubly hard to contend with.

But those were worries for another day. Today, they would celebrate.

Grabbing her shawl from the countertop, Elizabeth called out to Laura, “I’m headed out! You’ll mind the store?”

Laura emerged from beyond the racks of clothing in the back, rolling her eyes. “I think I can manage, Miss Weir.” She made a shooing motion with her hands. “You just have fun. Behave, and don’t do anything I wouldn’t.”

Elizabeth feigned confusion. “I believe those two commands are counterintuitive.”

Laura tossed her a grin. “I know.”

Elizabeth shook her head and started walking towards the door, but something about the way Laura was intently watching her made Elizabeth pause at the threshold. She turned back, caught Laura’s gaze and raised an eyebrow. “Something on your mind you wish to share with me, Laura?”

Laura flushed and looked down at her shoes. “Not particularly.”

“Spit it out. We both know you won’t hold your tongue.”

“I was just lamenting over the fact,” Laura began impishly, “that I’m the newly wed bride here, scarcely six months married, and you’re the one that gets to act like it. It’s not fair.”

Elizabeth froze, her cheeks coloring despite herself. “What do you mean?”

Laura shrugged, turning to sweep a hand across the countertop as she walked away. “It’s just that Mister Sheppard has been rather… affectionate with you since he’s woken up. Even more so than normal.”

Elizabeth flushed bright red. That much was true. Despite his injuries, since almost the moment he’d awoken, John had been possessive with her time and unusually untroubled by displaying affection for her with an audience present. Thankfully, Elizabeth had good friends who beyond the occasional ribbing didn’t frown upon the behavior. Still, while her relationship with John had never exactly followed the lines of propriety, she liked to maintain some level of public decorum. 

John had been making that difficult for her lately, not once but several times greeting her with a kiss hello that would have had most women suffering from a fainting spell. He seemed unrepentant about whether others witnessed it. That was just the tip of the iceberg regarding his extremely possessive behavior with her lately. 

If Elizabeth hadn’t been relieved beyond words to have him back among the land of the living, she would have been a little alarmed by the sudden potency of it all.

Laura continued her torment. “Carson said he walked in on a rather interesting sight the other day--”

“Whatever happened to a patient’s privilege to privacy?” Elizabeth cut in, arching an eyebrow. “I do hope Carson hasn’t forsaken his oath as a doctor to become the local gossip-peddler.”

“I’m his wife. What he tells me doesn’t fall under gossip.”

Elizabeth’s eyes narrowed in faux-annoyance, and then she pivoted on her heels. “I’ll see you at closing hour, Laura.”

“No need to rush!” Laura hollered after her, dissolving into quiet laughter. “I can handle everything on my own. Just enjoy yourselves!”

\--x--

 

It was mid-afternoon by the time Elizabeth had finished her errands for the day and had finally made it to Carson’s clinic. Despite the lateness of the hour, though, John was still slumbering. His body had recovered by leaps and bounds, but he still tested it everyday beyond its’ endurance. It was exasperating and frustrating for Elizabeth to watch. His recuperation had a long way to go before his body had mended itself, and she didn’t particularly feel any pressing need to rush it at all. 

Carson emerged from the backroom, and quietly fell into place beside her. “Good afternoon, Elizabeth. A pleasant day we’re having here.”

“Indeed, it is,” Elizabeth agreed softly. “How’s John doing?”

A shadow passed over Carson’s face, but it quickly disappeared. “Mostly, he’s doing fine. Giving me a headache with his constant complaints. The lad whines more about boredom than he does about the pain.”

“Carson,” Elizabeth urged softly. “Tell me the full truth.”

Carson grimaced, and then glanced at his patient wearily. After a moment, he quietly admitted, “He’s still plagued by those dreams.”

Elizabeth visibly flinched. He never spoke about the details of his dreams, but everybody knew about them. She’d watched him toss and turn at night more than once, muttering about things she couldn’t understand. She idly wondered if the man responsible for shooting John was named either Lucius or Dillon, as those unfamiliar names were frequently muttered about in his fitful sleep.

The one time she had asked him about it all, that second night after he’d woken up, John had turned silent and then stared up at her with such frighteningly haunted eyes that Elizabeth’s own throat had closed off in response. 

He told her he didn’t want to talk about it, ever. He had looked so broken in that moment, so aged and worn out like an old soul that Elizabeth’s protective streak had surged. Since then she had kept her curiosity at bay and told the others to mind their own business. She could tell whatever it was that was that haunting his dreams was a thing he would probably never want to talk about. Elizabeth would try her best to respect that. 

“Was the entire night fitful?” 

“Much of it,” Carson admitted, reluctantly dispensing with niceties. “Truth be told, I think it’ll do him some good to go home with you tonight to continue his recovery. He calls for you in his sleep.”

The declaration failed to inspire any warmth in Elizabeth. If the nightmares continued to persist, she knew she’d have to draw the truth from him whether he was willing to part from it or not. He needed to move on. Something told her that this latest near-death experience was different from all the other ones he’d so recklessly tossed himself into. Something had changed him in a way she couldn’t yet define.

She sighed, and watched as Carson nodded his goodbye and retreated back into his office. She circled around the bed, perching on the edge of the mattress and for a moment, John looked deceptively innocent and young as he slumbered. She couldn’t stop herself reaching out to brush a stray strand of hair away from his face, even knowing the contact would wake him.

When he stirred and opened his eyes, for a split second an expression flittered across his face that Elizabeth couldn’t identify – something that made her breath catch – but it passed all too quickly. He blinked groggily up at her, a small grin spreading on his face. 

“Hey,” he greeted. “There’s my girl.”

She smiled back, raking her hand through his hair. He practically purred at the sensation, and Elizabeth laughed. “C’mon,” she urged lightly, “let’s get you out of here.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

\--x--

 

She made a picnic for them, and when the sun drew to a close and the night had settled in, they both wandered up one of the grassy knolls on the outskirts of Atlantis. John spread the blanket and Elizabeth set out the food, the majority of which had been prepared expertly by Vala. Elizabeth took particular delight in ordering one of her apple pies for John, a favorite among any of Vala’s regular patrons.

“You know,” John said at length, after he had stretched out lazily across the blanket, settling his head against Elizabeth’s thigh. “I was thinking—”

“Oh, no. That’s never good.”

“Hush, you,” John chided quickly, looking up at her. “It’s unladylike to mock an injured man.”

Elizabeth stifled a giggle. “My apologies, I did not realize I was in the presence of a gentleman.”

“I don’t recall you being this sassy when we first met,” John groused. “You used to be so dignified, so modest. What happened to that woman?”

“That woman,” she offered, smirking a little, “met you. I guess you turned out to be a bad influence on me. Heaven knows enough people have commented that you’d turn a saint exasperated with your antics.” 

John affected a mock pout, and Elizabeth was overcome with the unholy urge to kiss it away - which she was entirely certain was John’s precise intent. She ignored the impulse, instead reaching across him to edge the leftover apple pie closer. The filling had spilled out into the empty container, but the applesauce was rather delicious by itself. Elizabeth took a scoop of it and savored the taste, but the entire process left her fingers sticky with the residue. 

She tried to reach for the checkered handkerchief that rested a foot away, but John’s head in her lap had left her fairly immobile. “John,” she quietly urged. “Could you pass me the napkin?” Instead, though, John looked up at her for a moment, and then took her hand in his and splayed her sticky fingers wide. “What are you doing—”

Her voice broke off, as John brought her hands to his lips and stretched one of her fingers out. He pressed his lips against the skin, and the warmth and wetness of his mouth played across her skin when he drew one of her fingers into his mouth and licked it clean, drawing the action out slowly, sensuously. Elizabeth lost all ability to speak. The awareness of his tongue roaming over her finger had no right to feel as intense as it did, but suddenly Elizabeth could scarcely breathe.

After he had drawn her finger out slowly, he repeated the action once more to her next finger. “There,” he said at length when he was satisfied with his work. “That’s better.” His voice held no arrogance or teasing, even though he must have been aware of her reaction to his exploits by the way she had fallen silent. Instead, his voice was soft and gentle, like his touch had been. 

“Funny,” he remarked. “You tasted better than the applesauce.”

“John--”

Before she knew what was happening, he had pushed off on his elbows and was suddenly kissing her. She froze for a second, but then quickly melted into his hold as he angled his lips against hers, taking over her mouth in a hungry kiss. He hissed slightly when he moved to sit up fully, the injury to his abdomen still sore and restricting. Elizabeth attempted to quickly pull back and apologize, but John was having none of that.

He sat up and tugged her flush to him, a hand threading through her hair and the other curling around her waist to pin her to him. He must have been ignoring at least a spike of discomfort with his injuries, but John didn‘t seem to think it warranted any limitations. A part of her was still too concerned with his injuries to completely ignore it in the way she returned his embrace, but then again, John had the uncanny ability to make her stop thinking entirely. 

But things quickly progressed into a territory she hadn’t anticipated.

“Need you, ‘Lizabeth,” he breathed against her lips, low and dark and tinged with an unfamiliar emotion. “Missed you so goddamned much.”

She didn’t have the opportunity to question the strange statement before he had managed to push her back until she was level underneath him. His body pressed flush against hers as their bodies conformed to the ground, and his hands roamed to settle on her waist, pinning her there even if she had thought to mount any resistance.

John had always been especially gifted at making her weak at the knees with just a simple kiss – not that this embrace could be construed simple by any means. He kissed her with the same deliberate intent that he had fixed on her fingers - slow and sensuous, probing in a way that left her breathless. She quickly struggled against all thoughts of propriety as his hands moved over her body. He pulled away from her mouth and dipped his head lower to suckle at the base of her neck, his lips and tongue ghosting over her exposed collarbone until she released an unladylike whimper.

Elizabeth wasn’t even aware that John was drawing the hem of her skirt higher and higher until she felt the heat of his hand roaming up the flesh of her leg. It was only then that she noticed he had began the process of undressing her.

She gasped, forcing herself to try and pull away. “John,” she whispered, weakly protesting. “John, stop.” 

Instead what he did was grind his body against hers and a breathless moan escaped her lips. For a moment, the sensation of his obvious arousal against her thigh was almost too much. Her body heated and throbbed, abruptly craving for the weight of him somewhere else other than against her thigh. When he repeated the action, pressing against her again as his hand continued to wander across her exposed leg, Elizabeth gasped faintly and her eyes slipped shut, lost to the sensation. 

It would have been all too easy to lose herself to this, the lust and need of John overwhelming her until they made love right there on the hilltops outside Atlantis. She had spent the last two weeks caught on a precipice of fear, all too aware of what she had come so close to losing. 

Still, if she gave this feeling of desperation so much as an inch, it’d take a mile. And even with everything they were to each other, they still weren’t married.

“John,” she persisted somehow, pleading. “No, stop.” He mumbled her name against her neck, and Elizabeth knew if he didn’t comply to her wishes soon, she’d lose what little willpower she had. “John, please stop. Please.”

He pulled back, although the price of it must have cost him much. Their gazes locked with heavy breathing, and while John had always looked at her with his desire for her naked in his eyes, especially when they were intimate like this, right now there was a darkness in them she couldn’t fathom. It was grief or loss and something like it, expressive eyes that reminded her of every other look akin to it that she had seen flitter across his face over the last two weeks. It made her breath catch every time.

“John?”

He pulled back completely, violently, tearing himself away from her in such a rapid move that Elizabeth was left cold and bereft. He was pacing back and forth across a patch of grassland before she had recovered enough to think about hiking her skirt back down. She pushed off on her elbows, fixed the folds of her clothing, and sat up a little breathless and flustered. In front of her John continued to pace, avoiding her gaze as the frustration ebbed off of him like waves. 

Elizabeth was still too speechless by the sudden turn from playful to lustful to distant to be able to understand anything. She attempted to find her voice, faint though it was. “John, what…” she trailed off, took a breath, and tried again. “What aren’t you telling me?”

John stopped with his back to her, body tensing. “Nothing, Elizabeth.”

Elizabeth forced another breath out, this one in a huff of annoyance. “At least have the courage to look at me when you lie to me, John.”

He whirled around. “I’m not… This isn’t…” He raked a hand through his hair in frustration. He sighed, and his voice turned strained as he continued, “I didn’t mean to… force myself on you like that. That wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“You didn’t--”

“I did,” John cut in, darkly. “I was. If you hadn’t stopped, I had no intention of stopping myself.”

The implication of his words left heat spreading through her body, but she forced herself to remain poised. “But you stopped when I asked you to. That‘s all that matters.”

“I should have never placed you in that situation to begin with. If it hadn’t been for--”

Elizabeth rose in a huff. “Oh, for goodness sake, John. Don’t make it out to seem like we both weren’t enjoying ourselves thoroughly,” she snapped. 

She blushed bright red before the words had even left her mouth. John looked up and caught her gaze, and with a quirk of his eyebrow, Elizabeth could see a hint of smugness blooming within him. Elizabeth would have been flustered and annoyed with it under any other day, but right now, she’d take an arrogant John Sheppard over this other one.

“What’s going on?” she asked. “Tell me. Trust me.”

He leveled her with a solemn gaze. “I’m staying in Atlantis.”

Elizabeth quirked an eyebrow, confused. “Of course you are. Until you’re fully recovered, I’ll keep you here if I have to tie you up to do it.”

“No,” John countered, shaking his head. “You don’t understand. I’m staying in Atlantis for good.”

Elizabeth paused, and then said faintly, “For good? What do you… what do you mean by that?”

“You know what I mean, Elizabeth.”

But she didn’t - couldn’t - because what she thought it meant was something she didn’t dare hope to think. John looked back at her and he must have sensed her uncertainty. In three slow steps, he closed in on the distance between them and was standing before her again. He reached out to cup her face against the splay of his palm, and then leaned forward to rest his forehead lightly against hers. 

“I‘m staying, for good,” he whispered, not a stench of doubt in his voice. “For you.”

Elizabeth froze, instantly overwhelmed. She had always prayed and hoped for one day when John would say those words to her, where she wouldn’t have to suffer the loneliness and heartache of watching him leave Atlantis and her behind whenever he took off on his next journey to God-knows-where. It was supposed to leave her joyful, complete, but something was wrong in the way this was all happening. Something she couldn’t describe. Instead of embracing the words she had so longed to hear, the implications had left her reeling back in its‘ place. 

She pulled free from his grasp and retreated a step or two. “You don’t mean that. Not truly.” Her breath hitched. “And it’s made all the more cruel to say that when in a few weeks‘ time, you’ll leave again.”

John floundered for words, visibly shaken by her reaction. “No, that’s not true--”

“I know you, John Sheppard,” Elizabeth cut in, voice hardening as she put more distance between them. “I know you better than you know yourself. These few weeks may have shaken you, but you’ll bounce back from it. And then you’ll remember the Wraith, you’ll go looking for Kolya and the Genii for retribution, and I’ll be left here feeling…” she trailed off, shaking her head. “It’s better you don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

She whirled around and suddenly busied herself with picking up after the picnic and putting things away. She couldn’t look at him, some twisted form of righteous indignation welling within her with surprising force. He would never abandon his quest incomplete. Until the day the Wraith were gone, Elizabeth knew he wouldn’t rest. It wasn’t in him to do anything else. He’d be put into the grave before he’d relent on his pursuit of justice. 

Despite herself, tears of anger and frustration welled in her eyes. She blinked them back, forcing her voice even as she turned back to him. The sight that greeted her robbed her of any shred of her faculties, though.

John was close by, dropped down on bended knee. “I didn’t want to do it like this,” he offered. “I wanted to wait until I had a ring, and possibly some semblance of a proposal in mind. I have neither of those things, just my word.”

“John,” she breathed faintly. 

“I have never in my entire life - in all my lives - loved anyone or anything as much as I love you,” John continued, then trailed off. “I want… I want to say this perfectly, but I don’t do words of poetry well.” He quickly broke off again, taking a deep breath as he attempted to continue. “I need you to know that I… nothing is more important… You are the only thing…”

Elizabeth waited a beat, breathless.

Except his shoulders slumped as he continued in a dejected tone. “Actually, the truth is, you have every right to be suspicious of my intent now. I’ve given you nothing before today to think I was willing to sacrifice everything - my way of life - to be with you.” He grimaced again. “This is quickly turning into a pathetic proposal, isn’t it?”

“Then what’s changed?” Elizabeth asked softly. “What’s changed in the last two weeks? And don’t tell me it’s because you nearly died. I’ve heard your stories. Death doesn’t scare you, it only fuels your motivation to get back out there.”

“I didn’t just nearly die,” John countered adamantly, and then struggled for words. “Something happened… something I can’t explain. You wouldn‘t believe me if I did!“

Elizabeth glanced away in frustration, tears welling again. Yes, he may have recently suffered a scare, but Elizabeth knew he’d spring back from that in no time. That’s what John did. He was unnervingly cavalier about his own life. He’d recover, both mentally and physically, and then leave again. 

And where would that leave her?

Elizabeth’s voice was hollow as she turned away. “Then I’m sorry, but I can’t--” 

John surged to catch her arm before she could pull away completely. “No, wait!” he urged frantically, tugging her back until she was standing before him again. He dropped down to bended knee again, and Elizabeth looked down at him with watery eyes. “Please," he pleaded. “Just give me a moment to figure out how to say this.”

“You’ve had years, John,” Elizabeth replied, frustrated. 

This was hardly the marriage proposal that she had spent so long dreaming about. After all these years, she never thought she’d ever say no to him when he’d finally ask, but neither had she thought that John would ask when he obviously wasn’t ready. His fumbling for words made her incredibly insecure more than anything.

“You make me a whole man, Elizabeth,” John said at length, still struggling for words. “I don’t know if it was a dream or reality, or something in between, but something happened to me when I was in that coma. I see the world differently now. I am different now.”

“How?”

He looked up at her, and his eyes turned dark again, into that grief filled expression that left her puzzled and feeling incredibly protective of him at the same time. “I know what it's like to lose you, and I won’t do that again.” His voice was suddenly neither soft nor wavering, instead hardening with a determination in them. He rose off his feet, bringing them face-to-face and on level ground. “I won’t live my life like that again. I‘d be willing to sacrifice anything for you, but I won’t be willing to sacrifice you for anything. Not again.”

“Again?” she repeated in confusion.

He locked gazes with her, voice firm and steadfast. “You may not believe me, but I’ve seen the world without you, Elizabeth. I don’t want it. I want you - love you - more than in anything else in the world. If you give me the chance, I‘m willing to spend the rest of my life to prove that to you.” He paused, taking a deep breath in anticipation. “If you’ll marry me?”

A tear slipped down her cheek, and when he brushed it away with his thumb, Elizabeth knew there was always only one answer she could ever give to this question.

\--x--


End file.
